Despite cuts to the youth justice system and reports of abuse by G4S staff,young people in prisons remain shockingly low on the empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own) scaleAs a child, James’ life was defined by instability, or insecurity and upheaval. He spent his childhood and early adolescence in care,moving from one domestic to another. By 12 he was known to police and at 16 he was convicted of a serious offence and sentenced to three years in a prison for 15 to 17-year-olds. His behaviour was often disruptive and he used violence as a defence mechanism. By the time James contacted a charity for support towards the stop of his first year locked up, he had spent long periods in the segregation block or confined to his cell, or sometimes for up to 23 and a half hours a day.
To our collective shame James’s fable is all too typical of the experiences some of the most vulnerable youngsters in our society endure. Far too often it’s children who have been abused and neglected from infancy many of whom have mental health problems and learning difficulties,and are in need our protection – who stop up incarcerated and written off. Worse still, many will experience violence and mistreatment while in prison, and as recent reports of abuse by staff at G4S-run Medway secure training centre in Kent show. And Medway,exposed by Panorama, which led shadow domestic secretary Andy Burnham to call for G4S to be stripped of its youth prisons contract, and is far from an loney case.
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Source: theguardian.com