{"id":3132,"date":"2019-11-27T18:05:59","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T18:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3132"},"modified":"2021-07-30T16:51:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T15:51:17","slug":"children-in-custody-its-a-gender-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3132","title":{"rendered":"Children in Custody: It\u2019s a Gender Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Boys in detention centre, Togo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations has just published a major study on children in custody worldwide. My thanks to the ever-energetic Douglas for alerting me to this UN study. The main report, by Manfred Nowak, is 758 page long. It identifies 7 million children in various types of custody, including police cells, prison, and detention centres. 94% of them are boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel which led the study consisted of 170 non-governmental\norganizations working directly or indirectly on children\u2019s deprivation of\nliberty. Information was collected from every region of the world: 41 inputs\nfrom Europe; 27 from Africa; 20 from Asia, 19 from North and South America; and\n11 from Oceania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The treatment meted out to many of these children is\nextremely distressing, and I do not intend to go into those details here. One\nmay hope \u2013 and expect \u2013 that children in custody in the UK do not experience\nsuch brutality. However, in terms of the gender ratio<\/em> of children in\ncustody, the worldwide data and UK data are similar \u2013 except that it is even\nmore extreme in the UK, with 97% – 98% of children in custody here being boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN is hardly noted for being a man-friendly\norganisation. It drives a host of feminist agendas. That only makes what\nfollows even more noteworthy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I quote firstly the UN Secretary-General\u2019s own words, from his relatively snappy 23 page report, \u201cGlobal study on children deprived of liberty, Note by the Secretary-General<\/a>, 11 July 2019\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe data collected for the study indicate significant\ngender disparities in the situation of children deprived of liberty.\nAltogether, there are far more boys deprived of liberty worldwide than girls.\nIn the administration of justice and in the contexts of armed conflicts and\nnational security, 94% of all detained children are boys; in migration\ndetention the figure is 67% and in institutions it is 56%. The number of boys\nand girls who live with their primary caregiver (almost exclusively mothers) in\nprison is similar<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCompared with the overall crime rate for children, the\ndata gathered for the study show a tendency of the child justice system to be\nmore inclined to apply diversion measures to girls than boys. While\napproximately one third of all criminal offences worldwide committed by\nchildren are attributed to girls, only 6% receive a prison sentence. There may\nbe various reasons for this phenomenon. Most importantly, girls usually commit\nless violent offences and are more often accused of status offences. Girls are\ngenerally first-time offenders and more receptive to the deterrent effect of\nincarceration. Another explanation is the \u201cchivalrous and paternalistic\u201d\nattitude of many male judges and prosecutors in the child justice systems, who\nassume, according to traditional gender stereotypes, that girls are more in\nneed of protection than boys<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough most States allow convicted mothers to\nco-reside with their young children in prison, only eight States explicitly\npermit fathers to do so. Even in places where fathers as primary caregivers are\nallowed to co-reside with their children, there are (almost) no appropriate\n\u201cfather and child units\u201d in the prisons, which means that there are practically\nno children co-residing in prison with their fathers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChildren from poor and socioeconomically disadvantaged\nbackgrounds, migrant and indigenous communities, ethnic and religious\nminorities and the LGBTI community, as well as children with disabilities and, above\nall, boys<\/strong>, are largely overrepresented in detention and throughout judicial\nproceedings<\/em>.\u201d (my emphasis)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeprivation of liberty constitutes a form of structural\nviolence against children<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In view of the latter observation, and the overwhelming\npreponderance of boys in custody, can one not reasonably conclude that here we\nhave an instance of gendered structural violence – against boys? And yet you\nwill find no mention of this in the Istanbul Convention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The complete report is \u201cUN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty<\/a>\u201d (Manfred Nowak, November 2019). The section on \u201cDiscrimination Against Boys\u201d puts England and Wales amongst the top few countries in terms of gender ratio: \u201cIn some States, the percentage of boys detained in the context of the administration of justice is close to 98% (England and Wales, Argentina) or even 99% (South Africa, Georgia)<\/em>\u201d. Did we want to be in such company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost all you need to know is the title of one of the\nreport\u2019s sub-sections,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPenal System is the Most Gendered Institution in Society<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows in that section is something I never thought to\nsee in a report from the UN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost research on the gender dimension of deprivation of\nliberty relates to the administration of criminal justice and primarily addresses\ncases of discrimination against girls, not against boys. Yet in 2006, Paulo\nSergio Pinheiro noted that \u2018millions of children, particularly boys, spend\nsubstantial periods of their lives under the control and supervision of care\nauthorities or justice systems, in institutions such as juvenile detention\nfacilities and reform schools.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to research conducted by Bruce Abramson in the\nsame year, the \u2018penal system, adult and juvenile, is the most heavily gendered\ninstitution in society, even more so than the military, given current trends.\nHe adds that the human rights movement, and the children\u2019s rights movement\nin particular, is contributing to this male-female gender gap by discriminating\nagainst boys<\/strong><\/em>\u201d (my emphasis)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It continues with this quote from Abramson,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether we look at the CRC*<\/sup> movement, or at the broader human rights movement, or at the specialized juvenile justice advocacy, we find the same pattern of avoiding the gender dimension of juvenile justice. Some adults are in deep denial of the gender issue when boys are at the losing end of the disparities. But most people recognise that there is a gender issue. The problem is that no one has found an effective, positive way to address it. I think that juvenile justice professionals and CRC activists are paying a dear price in credibility for their failure to address gender: the public knows \u2013 at some level of awareness \u2013 that the advocates for reform are not addressing the problem when they duck the gender dimension of delinquency\u2026.Sad to say, there is outright sex discrimination against boys in the CRC movement<\/em>.\u201d (*<\/sup>CRC is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow! Let me just check this is really a UN report. But it\nmay be significant that Nowak had to go back to research reported in 2006 for\nthis evidence. He goes on to note,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough girls are less likely to commit serious\ncriminal offences than boys, the detention rate does not reflect the crime\nrate. More than one-third (35-40%) of all criminal offences worldwide are\nattributed to girls. However, only one fourth of all children (25%) who come in\nformal contact with the criminal justice system are girls. Finally, only 11.6%\nof all convicted children are girls, and only 6% of all children who end up in\ndetention are girls<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowak concludes that the data show that girls receive more\nlenient sentences, usually non-custodial, and tend to benefit from diversion\naway from custody through all the stages of the process. These observations are\ndepicted in the graphics below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Figure 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The similarity with adult imprisonment in the UK is\nstriking. It appears that neither age nor culture greatly ameliorates the huge\nsex-bias in incarceration. In the case of adults in the UK, we are surely long\npast any debate about the overwhelming male dominance in prison being largely\ndue to discrimination; the progress of men and women through the UK criminal justice\nsystems is remarkably similar to Figure 1. It is reasonable to suppose that\ndiscrimination is responsible also for the overwhelming preponderance of boys\nin the juvenile facilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nowak\u2019s chapter on gender issues ends in Recommendations\nwhich include this,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAddress over-representation of boys in detention by\nvarious means, above all by promoting diversions at all stages in the criminal\njustice system and by proportionally applying non-custodial solutions to boys,\nas it is more widely practised with girls<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is going to hold the relevant UK Minister\u2019s feet to the\nfire on this one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems we have a way to go in some quarters. As of April 2018, there were 913 boys and just 27 girls<\/a> in the secure estate in England & Wales (97.1% boys). In that month, Anne Longfield, the Childrens\u2019 Commissioner for England, reported on a visit to some of these children<\/a> \u201cto learn about their lives before entering custody and understand the factors that led to them being imprisoned and what, if anything, could have been done to change their trajectory<\/em>\u201d. Well, very laudable. It\u2019s exactly what a Children\u2019s Commission should do. I have no difficulty with that\u2026except that out of 913 boys and 27 girls\u2026the 10 children she chose were all girls. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations has just published a major study on children in custody worldwide. My thanks to the ever-energetic Douglas for alerting me to this UN study. The main report, by Manfred Nowak, is 758 page long. It identifies 7 million children in various types of custody, including police cells, prison, and detention centres. 94% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children","category-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3132"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3780,"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132\/revisions\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}