Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
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the young women, they could ease tensions, <strong>and</strong> occasionally manage their<br />
behaviour („mothering‟ attributes that might be addressed by staff). Yet, the<br />
adult women also provided a role model that emphasised the centrality of<br />
prison life as a future. Inevitably, this impacted negatively on the young<br />
women.<br />
Recently, there have been moves to review New Zeal<strong>and</strong>‟s reservations to the<br />
UN Convention on the <strong>Rights</strong> of the Child, in relation to age-mixing in<br />
detention. This should be supported. Related to this are the issues of<br />
prisoner transport <strong>and</strong> police cell detention. Following a fatal attack against a<br />
young prisoner, Liam Ashley, it is now policy (from 28 August 2006) that no<br />
prisoner aged 17 or under shall be transported in the same vehicle<br />
compartments as adult prisoners. In addition, while there have been recent<br />
improvements in this area, there remain concerns about the detention of<br />
young people in police cells. Young people can be detained in police cells for<br />
many days (Lynch, 2008; UN Committee against Torture, 2009). Police celldetention<br />
raises a number of issues: young people can be in contact with<br />
adult offenders, they cannot receive education, they have limited access to<br />
sanitary facilities, they have limited access to nutritional food, <strong>and</strong> family visits<br />
are very difficult to arrange.<br />
Impact of Detention on Children<br />
One element that drove New Zeal<strong>and</strong> away from the extensive incarceration<br />
of children/young people was the realisation that detention is not shown to be<br />
effective in changing behaviours. Rather, at best, incarceration makes little<br />
impact on recidivism rates for children <strong>and</strong> young people <strong>and</strong>, at worst, it can<br />
increase offending (Lambie, 2009; Weatherburn et al, 2009).<br />
Added to this, the experience of imprisonment is shown to have a deleterious<br />
effect on the physical <strong>and</strong> mental well being of children/young people.<br />
International literature shows that family relations become more strained<br />
(particularly as children/young people are often detained far away from home);<br />
negative behavioural traits can be reinforced; children/young people can be<br />
exposed to bullying, intimidation or violence; their sense of alienation can be<br />
compounded; they can face stigmatisation; they lose opportunities for<br />
education; they do not have their specific needs met; <strong>and</strong> they are at risk of<br />
institutionalisation (Goldson <strong>and</strong> Coles, 2005; HM Chief Inspector of <strong>Prisons</strong>,<br />
2004). Children <strong>and</strong> young people are made more vulnerable by detention.<br />
From this, it appears that New Zeal<strong>and</strong> needs to continue to use detention as<br />
the absolutely last resort for this group. In addition, more consideration might<br />
be given to the establishment of small scale, dispersed Youth Rehabilitation<br />
Centres to end the detention of children/young people in police cells <strong>and</strong> adult<br />
prisons, <strong>and</strong> to intensively address serious youth offending.<br />
Fortunately, research does show that strategies of early intervention <strong>and</strong><br />
„wrap around‟ services are more likely to bring positive benefits. Communitybased<br />
sentences have more potential to reduce re-offending than custodial<br />
sentences (McLaren, 2000:47; Solomon <strong>and</strong> Allen, 2009). Lambie (2009)<br />
shows that international programmes such as multidimensional therapeutic<br />
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