Creating new criminals

BMJ 1995;311:1037-1038 (21 October)

Editorials

Creating new criminals

Locking up juvenile offenders is more likely to result in themreoffending

At its conference last week, the Conservative party announcedplans for a new "get tough" policy of longer and harsher prisonsentences for persistent and violent offenders. The Britishgovernment is also planning to impose strict new regimes onjuvenile offenders, looking to the "glasshouses" of Britishmilitary prisons for inspiration.¹ The issue of locking up childrenand young people is nothing new. Parkhurst Prison for Boys wasestablished in 1838 mainly as a consequence of the "moral panic"about juvenile gangs destroying property.² ³ Whether there wasin fact an upsurge in juvenile crime is not known, but a perceptionthat there was led to a drive to protect juveniles both fromthemselves and from contamination by professional criminals.The same pressures are at work today.