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Kids 'let down by care system'
Youth charities demanded a shake-up today of the "cradle-to-jail" system which has led to around half of all children held in young offenders' institutes coming from a care background.
Charities Prison Reform Trust and National Children's Bureau have revealed a shocking pattern of disadvantaged children let down by local authorities, trapped in a vicious circle of care and custody.
They argued that the care system rather than the justice system should be doing more to help reduce offending by looked after children.
Most children are taken into care because they have been abused, neglected or experienced family breakdown, the charities said.
The state is supposed to look after them and protect them from further harm but looked-after children are far more likely to be convicted of a crime and end up in custody than other children, they said.
Prison Reform Trust director Juliet Lyon stated: "Let down by families and local authorities alike, far too many children find themselves on the dreary, damaging route from care to custody."
She added that more needed to be done to prevent the one per cent of children currently in care in Britain from becoming the substantial number behind bars.
The NCB's Dr Di Hart said there was no quick fix to reducing offending by children in care.
She said: "Each child has their own unique strengths and vulnerabilities and the adults working with them must provide a care experience that reflects these."
In a joint report by the charities dubbed Care – A Stepping Stone To Custody? local authorities were urged to keep in contact with children who end up in custody through regular visits and putting plans for their release in place at the earliest opportunity.
They also recommended that children should be allowed to stay in placements where they are happy, should be involved in the decisions that affect their lives and protected from regular changes in social work staff.
One case study in the report, a convicted 16-year-old girl said: "What I've heard from different police officers when I've been arrested, it's like, 'you're a kid in care, you're never [going to] get out of this way of life'."
Will Stone
8 December 2011
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/112899
