Policing
Children are being hurt by policing and criminal justice procedures which do not respect their human rights. As in other areas, the State focus on individuals – rather than on fixing the difficult and often dangerous circumstances that makes lives so hard – only increases the harm.
The focus for police involvement in communities has shifted from punishment to ‘safeguarding’. Far from keeping children safe this has extended police powers yet further into normal life. Not only are children criminalised – without any crime being committed – and but then that harm is spread throughout all areas of their lives when information about them is shared as ‘safeguarding’.
Children need their economic and social human rights respecting and for the government to honour the commitments they made, not policing because of these government failures.
“Society uses the violent arm of the State to punish young people for being in the positions we put them in.”
Art Against Knives
Liberty, Holding Our Own (2023)
Not criminal
Since New Labour there has been ongoing increases of state control and policing of our lives without any crime being committed. The issue has been framed as being about ‘pre-crime’ and ‘early intervention’ but there’s a lack of evidence of criminality at all.
Framing: Pre-criminal?
Or just NOT criminal?
‘Safeguarding’ extends police powers
- PREVENT - blurring of policing and safeguarding leaves children and families without protection.
- Attendance at school - information is shared with police
- County lines and 'gangs' - children can be flagged as 'gang associated' by professionals on the basis of opinion, which opens them up to policing interventions.
- 'Gangs' - Police databases have included children not believed to have committed any crime on the basis of protecting them, yet being on the database has led to negative outcomes.
“Policies implemented in the name of safeguarding the vulnerable also act as a gateway for criminalisation not just under drugs laws but also modern slavery legislation’.”
Professor Insa Koch and Drs Patrick Williams and Lauren Wroe
Race and Class: ‘County lines’: racism, safeguarding and statecraft in Britain (2023)
Racist policing policies
“There are parallels in the approaches that lead to the surveillance of Muslims through ‘counter-terrorism’ and those that target young Black and brown people in the name of serious youth violence ‘prevention’.”
PREVENT: Policing children
as young as four
‘Youth’ violence: the policing
of children failed by the State
Black and racialised communities are heavily policed on the basis of drugs even though evidence shows white communities, including students, have higher drug usage yet are not policed in the same aggressive way. Black children’s lives and futures are negatively impacted by this.
“…drug use is most prevalent amongst white university/college students, who acquire their drugs through ‘friends, neighbours, colleagues, or family members”
Professor Insa Koch and Drs Patrick Williams and Lauren Wroe
Race and Class: ‘County lines’: racism, safeguarding and statecraft in Britain (2023)
Stop and search
In 2021-22 children were stopped and searched 94,975 times with just 9% of these searches led to arrest.
Even more concerning is the strip searching of children as young as eight, justified on safeguarding grounds.
Stop and search and strip search of children:
significant harm in the name of safeguarding
Criminal justice
Human rights committees and others have flagged a number of major issues with the UK disregarding children’s rights within the criminal justice system.
Rights report on UK
“The Committee is deeply concerned about the draconian and punitive nature of its child justice system.”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh reports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2023)
Age 10
In the UK the age of criminal responsibility is ten, well below international rights standards.
Both the Council of Europe and the UN Committee on Rights of the Child calling for this to be raised to a minimum of 14, and ideally older.
Rights report on UK
“A key element of ensuring child-friendly justice is setting an appropriate minimum age of criminal responsibility.”
Dunja Mijatović, Commissioner for Human Rights,
Council of Europe
Report on UK (2022)
Treatment of children
“Children can spend up to nine months in custody without a sentence. In 2019, two-thirds of remanded children did not subsequently receive a prison sentence.”
“The latest Home Office statistics combined with responses to our FOI Requests show that spit-hood use on children has rapidly increased in recent years.”
“Despite the significant resources at their disposal, leaders in the Youth Custody Service are unable to guarantee basic services for children. Many spend most of their sentence locked up alone in their cell with very little human contact.”
Charlie Taylor
Chief Inspector of Prisons
Children in custody 2022–23
Rights report on UK
“The Committee is deeply concerned about……the continued use of solitary confinement on children, and segregation and isolation in child detention facilities, and that legislation allows for life imprisonment of children.”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh reports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2023)
Rights report on UK
“The Committee is deeply concerned about…the large number of cases of violence, including sexual abuse, committed by staff against children in the child justice system, and the findings of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse that such complaints are rarely investigated.”
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh reports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2023)