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15 June 2009

NO 1448

Secure accommodation

Introduction
In the UK, some children and young people who are deemed by their parents or carers and local authorities to be 'at risk' in the community are detained in secure accommodation under the Children Act 1989 in England and Wales and on the authority of a Children's Panel in Scotland. Locking up children in any circumstances is an extreme step and should only be used as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate time (UNCRC 1991), and yet this phrase has the effect of glamorising incarceration, making the deprivation of liberty somehow more acceptable in that it can be justified as in the 'best interests' of the child. However, it is 'incarceration nonetheless' (Chesney-Lind 1978:190) and this approach conceals a complex pattern of control, in some cases as harsh as that in the criminal justice system and carries with it all the risks and poor outcomes which are associated with custody. Girls are more vulnerable than boys to detention in secure accommodation 'for their own protection': more than three quarters of the girls, but only one quarter of the boys in secure units in England are admitted because they are 'at risk', providing clear evidence of the gendered nature of the definition and assessment of 'risk' (DfES 2004).

In recent years local authority secure accommodation in England has been transformed from secure children's homes operating within a welfare philosophy, to the more orthodox youth justice provision which is 'offender-based' operating within a philosophy of control. It is now part of the 'secure estate' managed by the Youth Justice Board (introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998) and this is reflected in the make-up of the secure unit population with almost 80% admitted through the criminal justice system on remand or convicted of serious crimes (DfES 2004). This article will review the literature and draw on findings from research undertaken by the author firstly to examine the experience in secure accommodation and the outcomes following release to determine whether it is really in the 'best interests' of children 'at risk' to deprive them of their liberty and their rights; and secondly to question the legitimacy of local authority secure accommodation as it is currently constituted to provide `protective custody' in the child welfare system.

Background
Secure accommodation is provided by councils with social services responsibility for children and young people in the child welfare and criminal justice systems. It is defined by the Children Act 1989 as 'accommodation provided for the purpose of restricting liberty' although it relies for its authority on both civil and criminal statute. It has been described as occupying 'a unique and ambivalent midpoint on the treatment-punishment continuum' (Dennington 1991:90) and 'straddling the conceptual space that awkwardly separates the child welfare and youth justice systems' (Goldson 2002:9). Its complexity lies in the diverse range of children and young people held together in the secure units, and the different civil and criminal powers and legislation under which they are detained (Harris and Timms 1993, Gabbidon and Goldson 1997). Secure accommodation is better resourced than most forms of residential care and custody and places are expensive in comparison with other institutions.

Notwithstanding its ambiguous and controversial status, and the concerns about its use which have been expressed by academics, policymakers and practitioners (for example Millham and others 1978, Cawson and Martell 1979, Stewart and Tutt 1987, Kelly 1992, Hodgkin 1995, O'Neill 2001, Goldson 2002) secure accommodation has expanded and consolidated its position in the youth justice and child welfare systems. In the 1980s government grants to local authorities facilitated an expansion of secure accommodation to meet the needs of 'difficult' and 'more challenging' children in a way that was not considered possible in mainstream residential care (Goldson 2002), and further substantial expansion followed developments in youth justice policy in the 1990s, for example to provide for the anticipated increase in demand for secure accommodation resulting from the abolition of penal remands for children (Section 60 Criminal Justice Act 1991), although this was never implemented, and to meet the increased need for security following amendments to sentencing and remand criteria introduced by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. These developments produced a 60% increase in secure accommodation provision.

T. O'NEILL

O'Neill, T. (2006). Children 'at risk' in secure accommodation. International Journal of Child and Family Welfare, 6, 4. pp.238-239.

REFERENCES

Cawson, P. and Martell, M. (1979). Children referred to closed units. London. HMSO.

Chesney-Lind, M. (1978). Young women in the arms of the law. In Bowker, L. (Ed.). Women, Crime and the Criminal Justice System. Lexington. Lexington Books.

Dennington, J. (1991). The mother of invention – negative reform and secure accommodation. In Dennington J. and Pitts, J. (Eds.). Developing Services for Young People in Crisis. Harlow. Longman.

DfES. (2004). Children Looked After by Local Authorities, Year Ending 31 March 2004. London. DfES.

Gabbidon, P. and Goldson, B. (1997). Securing Best Practice. London. National Children's Bureau.

Goldson, B. (2002). Vulnerable inside: Children in secure and penal settings. London. The Children's Society.

Harris, R. and Timms, N. (1993). Secure accommodation in child care: Between hospital and prison or thereabouts? London. Routledge.

Hodgkin, R. (1995). Safe to let out? The current and future use of secure accommodation for children and young people. London. National Child's Bureau.

Kelly, B. (1992). Children inside: Rhetoric and practice in a locked institution for children. London. Routledge.

Millham, S.; Bullock, R. and Hosie, K. (1978). Locking up children: Secure provision within the child care system. Farnborough. Saxon House.

O'Neill, T. (2001). Children in secure accommodation: A gendered exploration of locked institutional care for children in trouble. London. Jessica Kingsley.

Stewart, G. and Tutt, N. (1987). Children in custody. London. Avebury

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