MSP calls for public inquiry into historical child abuse
30 April 2014 Last updated at 18:41
Scottish Labour MSP Graeme Pearson asked the Scottish
government to consider holding a public inquiry into historical child
abuse, during a member's debate on 30 April 2014.
The member for South of Scotland said that the survivors of abuse deserved action and that "we have a responsibility to answer clearly and simply the demands of survivors."
Mr Pearson added: "If there is to be no response akin to a Northern Ireland public inquiry will the minister explain why?
Will the government reconsider their decision now?"
Community Safety and Legal Affairs Minister Roseanna Cunningham replied that the issue was a very complicated one and "some victims expressly didn't want a public inquiry".
Ms Cunningham also said: "Concerns around the issue of an inquiry included it might take a very long time, the outcomes might not offer tangible support, that it might be expensive, and that it would have the potential for conflict and further trauma."
The minister, however, accepted that such an inquiry could be held in the future should it be deemed to be the best way forward.
By Frances Crook
Before this week there were only two details that we knew about the
Ministry of Justice plans for a 'secure college' – that it would be the
biggest child prison in the country and that staff would be able to
restrain children for 'good order and discipline'. Beyond the semantics,
this means that officers could use physical force to get children to do
what they’re told, a practice found to be illegal in the past.
One of the most controversial aspects of the proposals is to
incarcerate girls and boys together: only five per cent of children
behind bars are girls. We know that girls in the criminal justice system
have disproportionately horrific backgrounds of rape, sexual abuse,
domestic violence and exploitation. This is why the only people who
think it is a good idea to dump a few damaged girls into a super-sized
prison dominated by boys are in the government.
In response to concerted questioning
on the safety of this scheme, the prisons minister, Jeremy Wright,
attempted to reassure the House of Commons during a debate on the
proposals this week. And that is how we learnt the third detail of the
secure college: the ‘complex needs’ of these girls would be
acknowledged by creating a mother and baby unit. A prison within a
prison, for children with children.
Aside from being fundamentally inhumane, this is a bizarre response to
meeting girls' underlying needs and an admission that the Ministry of
Justice doesn’t know how to keep them safe.
When you have big institutions, the girls are at risk of sexual assault
and exploitation. More subtly than this, it is not just about the
levels of violence – sexual, or otherwise – it is that girls cannot
flourish because there are so few of them and the institution is
designed by men for men. It was only a few years ago that girls were
removed from G4S Oakhill secure training centre because of the levels of
violence: girls have never been incarcerated there since.
This will be a prison with perhaps 20 girls and 300 boys, supervised by
very few poorly-trained staff. Is the plan for a mother and baby unit
an admission of despair? The horrific stories of sexual abuse of children in Medomsley where more than 600 boys appear to have been the
victims of sexual abuse by staff are only just emerging. Who will take
responsibility in decades to come when we find that the Titan prison was
a centre of sexual abuse and violence?
If the government really wants to transform youth custody, it needs to
look at what works to keep children safe. First and foremost, this is
where children will live. It is a home. The evidence shows that small
intensively-staffed environments holding not more than 10 children, keep
children safe and address their behaviour. In such a well-resourced
environment, and with a balanced ratio between girls and boys, then it
can be possible to mix the genders in a safe way. Secure children’s
homes already provide this for the handful of children who require
custody: we do not need to reinvent the wheel, we should invest money
into what is already working.
Yet the government is ploughing on with its Titan mistake and still
intends to gamble children’s lives and more than £80 million of
taxpayers' money. The Ministry of Justice has blocked Howard League
research into sex behind bars, which covers consensual and coercive sex
in prisons as well as child sexual development. It is all too easy to
turn a blind eye to the realities and risks of prison.
But if a girl becomes pregnant in the secure college, then the
government has planned for that. There’ll be a specially adapted cell
for her and her baby.
Frances Crook is chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, the oldest penal reform charity in the United Kingdom.
