Ending violence against children
in custody
Headline findings from research with
children and young people
Carla Garnelas
Head of Policy and Public Affairs
Children’s Rights Alliance for England
Talar Torossian
Young Investigator
Cyprus
This presentation...
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Introduction to the project
Methodology
Headline findings and recommendations
Next steps
Talar’s experiences as a young investigator
Any questions?
About the project
• Funded by the European Commission’s DAPHNE
III fund (all content is sole responsibility of partners)
• Coordinated by Children’s Rights Alliance for
England (CRAE)
• Five partner organisations:
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Austria Ludwig Boltzman Institute
Belgium International Juvenile Justice Observatory
Cyprus Children’s Commissioner for Cyprus
The Netherlands Defence for Children InternationalECPAT
– Romania Save the Children Romania
This project aims to support and empower
children and young people with direct
experience of custody to campaign for
violence-free custodial settings. It is focused
on the direct testimonies of children and
young people with experience of custody and
provides a platform for them to campaign for
change.
Background
Despite the existence of a comprehensive international
framework, pan-European regulations and domestic
legislation in EU Member States there is significant
evidence to suggest that children are regularly subject
to violence within custodial settings.
Violence against children while in justice institutions… is
more common than violence against children placed in
institutions solely for the provision of care. Although
there are many overlaps and similarities… the
institutional treatment of children regarded as being
anti-social or criminal is likely to be more physically and
psychologically punitive that that of other groups or in
other environments.
United Nations Study on Violence against Children (2006)
Aims and objectives
The Ending Violence against Children in Custody project
aims to make progress towards ending violence against
children and young people in custody through:
• Carrying out legal and policy analysis
• Supporting children and young people to conduct
research with children and young people with
experience of custody and seek their views on how
violence in custody can be ended
• Supporting children and young people with experience
of custody to campaign for change
• Influencing decision-makers and the custodial
workforce.
The project is based on the definition of
violence found in Article 19 of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
which guarantees every child the right to
protection from physical or mental violence,
injury or abuse, neglect or negligent
treatment, maltreatment or exploitation,
including sexual abuse.
Project timeline
• Research phase: desk-based legal analysis of the
rules governing custody and interviews with
children and young people
• Campaigning phase: young people develop their
own campaigns based on the recommendations
from their research.
• Currently finalising consolidated investigation
report – highlighting pan-European findings and
common recommendations
• Five partners in campaign phase, working with
young campaigners
Methodology: Desk-based legal analysis
All partners conducted a desk-based study of
law, policy and practice into:
• The use of force
• Violence against children in custody
• Mechanisms for access to justice
IJJO conducted a study of law and policy at
international and European level relating to
children in custody and violence against
children in custody
Methodology: Research with children and
young people
• Five partner organisations recruit up to ten Young
Investigators to form Young Investigation Team (YIT)
• YIT members trained in research skills, have input
into final interview questions and supported to carry
out interviews with children and young people with
direct experience of custody. Some interviews
conducted in custody, some in the community
• YIT members involved in drafting final report
including recommendations.
Challenges in research phase
• Different juvenile justice systems across the partner
countries
• Limited pool of young people with direct experience of
custody
• Recruiting/maintaining contact with young people
• Difficulties in gaining access to custodial settings
• Not able to carry out research in all settings – impact on
findings
• Would have liked longer to build up relationships with
participants in focus groups
Demographics
• 120 children and young people were involved in the
research phase of the Ending Violence against
Children in Custody project across the five European
countries
• 21 young people as members of Young Investigation
Teams:
– Gender: 15 Male, 7 Female
– Age: 14-22 years-old
• 99 young people as participants in focus group
interviews or 1:1 interviews:
– Gender: 90 male, 9 female
– Age: 13-22 years-old
Interview settings
• Austria: interviews in a juvenile detention centre and
in pre-trial custody
• Cyprus: interviews in the community with young
people who had previously been in custody and in
prison with young people currently serving a custodial
sentence
• England: interviews in Secure Children’s Homes, a
Young Offender Institute and in the community with
young people who had previously been in custody
• Netherlands: interviews in three youth custodial
institutions
• Romania: interviews took place in a re-education
centre, a juvenile prison and a prison-hospital.
Research questions
• Questions agreed by all partners and used in
all focus groups/1:1 interviews
• 15 questions including:
– How do they define violence?
– When does violence occur in custody?
– How do people respond to violence in custody?
– Messages to people in charge.
What is violence?
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Violence is an abuse of power
Violence includes a range of physical acts
Violence can also be verbal or emotional
Bullying and racism can be forms of violence
Growing up with violence makes it “normal”
for some young people
• Some children and young people regard
punishments in custody as forms of violence:
for example solitary confinement or basement
imprisonment
Experiences of violence
• Violence happens between young people and between young
people and staff – young people talked about both kinds of
experiences
• Violence is a common experience in custody
• There is a difference between violence in custody and violence
outside – inside it is much harder to avoid, can’t get away from it
• Violence is caused by a range of factors including: people trying to
assert their status and gain respect over other young people, anger,
frustration, boredom, external gang conflicts, putting lots of young
people together in a confined space, staff goading young people,
unhappiness at being locked up, the crime a young person has
committed (particular issue for sex offenders)
• Violence can escalate quickly in custodial settings
• Children and young people were particularly concerned by the use
of force used by police in police vehicles, stations and cells and said
that it was often worse than the force used by staff in custodial
settings
Responses to violence
• Staff often intervene to stop violence and sometimes
use force to do so
• Staff can sometimes intervene too quickly and with
excessive force
• Staff sometimes do not intervene and let fights
continue
• Young people often step in to calm a situation down
– this can be very effective
• Levels of violence and the use of force by staff differs
depending on the institution
• Young people do not think that talking to staff about
violence will change anything (and can be considered
“snitching”)
• The complaints system is not effective
• Individual young person-staff relationship is critical
Messages to people in charge
• Take time to listen to young people and find
out what has happened in their lives
• Stop violence by talking to children and young
people
• Staff should be able to relate to young people
and work with them well
• Positive relationships between staff and young
people are critical and can help to reduce
violence
• Bring in external people (ex-offenders) as role
models that young people can relate to
Common recommendations
YIT members drafted recommendations for how to
reduce violence in custody based on research
findings. There were many common themes across
the five country reports:
• Create a distinct, child –focused, youth justice system
for children and young people
• Qualities of staff working in custodial settings
• More positive activities in custodial settings
• Better mediation and methods of resolving conflicts
• Police behaviour and the need for regulation
A distinct system for children and
young people
• Create safe, distinct and specialised prison facilities for
children in conflict with the law (Cyprus)
• Find an alternative to prison for young people as it makes
young people more violent and does not rehabilitate them
(Austria)
• Reduce/eliminate the use of certain kinds of punishments
and introduce very strict rules to regulate the use of force
by staff (England, the Netherlands)
• Judges should think carefully about whether the sentences
they are giving are appropriate, consider whether prison is
right for that young person and take into account their
circumstances, backgrounds and needs. (Cyprus, England,
the Netherlands)
Employ people we can relate to
• We want former prisoners to visit and talk to the young
people - people with similar backgrounds and experiences
to “us” as external mentors(Austria,, England)
• Employ people who like children and young people and can
relate to them (England,Cyprus )
• There must be specialised procedures for the selection of
staff, screen staff properly (Cyprus, the Netherlands)
• Staff should have training on children’s rights, they could be
trained by young people on how to respond to situations
effectively (Cyprus, England)
• Staff need to develop positive relationships, based on trust
with young people (the Netherlands, England)
• Be interested in the young person not their crime – don’t
judge them (the Netherlands, England)
We need more to do
• Be pro-active, keep us busy and run lots of
positive activities – this will reduce feelings of
frustration and boredom (England)
• More sport and physical activity will calm
people down and release pressure, we need
more time out of our cells (Austria, Romania)
• Better quality and more useful education and
vocational training with a greater range of
activities on offer (Cyprus, Romania)
Better mediation and resolution of
conflict
• There needs to be more effective mediation between
young people (Romania)
• Introduce more effective complaints mechanisms
that young people can have faith in (Cyprus, the
Netherlands)
• Talking should always be the first method of trying to
calm down a violent incident – violence should be a
last resort (England)
• Create opportunities for young people and staff to
meet regularly to discuss problems and think about
how to resolve them (Austria)
Challenge police behaviour
• Need video surveillance of police to make them more
accountable and regulate the way they behave when
they come into contact with young people – CCTV
with sound in police stations and vehicles (England,
Romania)
• Police officers should be recruited who are child
friendly and sensitive to issues related to children in
conflict with the law. They should have specific
training on children’s rights (Cyprus)
• More effective complaints mechanisms (Cyprus)
Next steps
• Publication of consolidated investigation
report
• Campaigning activity in five partner countries
• Country campaign reports
• Consolidated campaign report
• Children and young people’s versions of the
investigation and campaign report
• Project end: 1 Feb 2013
Find out more...
All reports will be available on the project
website:
www.violencefreecustody.org.uk
Contact Carla Garnelas
cgarnelas@crae.org.uk