Comment

Lucy Adams and Andrew weston

The Children's Commissioner for Scotland will raise concerns with the United Nations later this year about the way young people are being criminalised and detained in adult prisons. Kathleen Marshall's report will form part of the UN's own study into how well the UK is adhering to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified in 1991.

The UN committee on children's rights has already expressed concerns about the way young people are treated. In 2002 it said the UK's different juvenile justice systems did not reflect the best interests of the child. It also urged Scotland to pursue the possibility of including 16- to 18-year-olds in the children's hearing system - a move that was mooted and subsequently dropped by MSPs.

"The detention of 16- and 17-year-olds goes against the UN convention," Marshall said.

"It seems very odd that we have the children's hearing system that we are so proud of up to the age of 16 and then suddenly we hit them really hard. It is also very worrying that we see so many children from care backgrounds going through the criminal justice system.

"We will also be raising concerns about labelling young people as offenders. Children in care homes are receiving convictions for things other children would get away with. Suddenly labelling children as criminals pushes them further into a downward spiral."

This is the first year there has been a group of UK children's commissioners who can speak privately to the UN about the country's adherence to the convention.

Figures from the Scottish Executive show increasing numbers of children, some as young as 14, are being kept in adult jails.

Dr Andrew McLellan, the chief inspector of prisons, has criticised the practice. He said prison is no place for a child.

 Tuesday 3rd April 2007

Print

Email this

Comment

Add your comment

Name:
Email: *
Location:
**
	e.g. 123-123
Comment: Please note: All HTML tags will be ignored. Format Text:
By posting a comment, I confirm that I have read and agree to the terms of use. Comments are not moderated but we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention and we may delete inappropriate postings. Please treat other people with respect. You must not post anything that is abusive, indecent, unlawful or defamatory. Remember, you are personally liable for what you post on this site. If you wish to complain about a comment, contact us here.
* Your email address will not be displayed ** To avoid register now or login