The Expansion of Secure Accommodation in Scotland: in the Best Interests of the Child?
| Date | 01 December 2004 |
| DOI | 10.1177/147322540400400303 |
| Published date | 01 December 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
the Best Interests of the Child?
Mark Smith and Ian Milligan
Correspondence: Mark Smith, Glasgow School of Social Work, University of Strathclyde,
Southbrae Drive, Glasgow G13 1PP. Email: m.smith.100Vstrath.ac.uk
Abstract
The
Scottish
Executive
recently
announced
a
significant
increase
in
secure
accommodation, amongst a raft of measures aimed at tackling youth crime. These
developments represent a marked and sudden change in political direction, away from an
emphasis on community-based welfare disposals towards more institutionally-based
correctional interventions. This article outlines the history and legal basis of secure
accommodation in Scotland and examines recent reviews concerning the need or
otherwise for its expansion. Such reviews have consistently failed to support a need to
increase the number of secure places available and this raises questions about whether the
Scottish Executive’s decision is based on sound evidence. The article contends that the
decision to expand reflects a populist but erroneous conception of secure accommodation
as a justice oriented disposal. It is argued that secure accommodation is and should
remain, located firmly within a welfare framework. Implications for youth justice and for
the residential child care system more generally are considered.
Background
There is a long tradition in Scotland of locating services for children and young people
within welfarist and educational frameworks (Smith, 2003). This tradition was
encapsulated in the Kilbrandon Report (1964) on children and young people.
Kilbrandon concluded that children who offend and those deemed to require care and
protection, are united in a commonality of unmet need. Addressing such needs, rather
than the behavioural manifestation of them, therefore, should be the focus of
professional intervention. The primary purpose of such intervention, according to
Kilbrandon, was to provide ‘education in its widest sense’.
The Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, which drew on Kilbrandon’s recommendations,
abolished Juvenile Courts and established the Children’s Hearing system. Hearings
involve a panel of three lay volunteers presiding over a case ‘in the best interests of
the child’ and they have characterised Scottish welfarism for over 30 years. Until 2002,
the political thrust in relation to youth offending in Scotland appeared to be marked
by a relatively liberal policy tone. The Scottish Executive’s Action Programme to Reduce
Youth Crime 2002, for example, earmarked £23.5 million over four years to support
community-based interventions to reduce youth crime (Scottish Executive, 2002a). The
language of this initiative placed it firmly within the social inclusion agenda. Its
priorities are expressed in terms of reducing youth offending, making communities
safer, supporting victims and boosting social inclusion through restorative justice
approaches. However, against this backdrop and within a short period of time, the
Executive had reacted to (and arguably stoked up) popular concern in relation to youth
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crime. Indeed, later in 2002 a 10-Point Youth Crime Action Plan (Scottish Executive,
2002b) was suddenly announced with a completely different emphasis proposing,
among other measures: ‘Fast Track’ Hearings aimed at ‘persistent offenders’ (under 16
years); a pilot Youth Court for 16 and 17-year-olds and a review of secure
accommodation. Moreover, and further to the publication of the 10-Point Action Plan,
youth crime and disorder has retained its high political profile. In the last two years the
Executive has introduced a range of additional measures, including the Anti-Social
Behaviour Act 2004 (containing provisions for the electronic tagging of children and the
imposition of ‘Parenting Orders’ followed by prosecution in the case of breach).
Within this context questions have been raised about the efficacy of the Children’s
Hearing system itself. Indeed, the very future of the Hearing system is in doubt, despite
a wealth of well-respected professional defence (see for example, NCH Scotland, 2003).
All this adds up to what appears to be a sustained attack on the underpinning welfare
approach to children and young people in Scotland. This is further evidenced by an
administrative re-organisation within the Scottish Executive itself, whereby secure
accommodation has become the responsibility of the Justice Department as distinct from
services for ‘looked after children’ that fall under the remit of the Education Department.
One of the criticisms levelled at Children’s Hearings is related to their inability to insist
on a secure place for children who appear to be ‘outwith control’ and ‘persistently
offending’. Hearings can only authorise, rather than require this as a disposal. As we
explore below, this point has become crucial in the proposals for the expansion of
secure accommodation. As already noted, the 10-Point Youth Crime Action Plan
announced a review of the number of secure beds that are required and by September
2002 a substantial increase was announced to take the number of secure places from
96 to 125 (Scottish Executive, 2002c and 2002d). It might be argued that this
development is an overdue attempt to reconfigure the secure estate, ensuring a better
geographical spread of resources and introducing the possibility of more specialist
provision (one of the new units will be exclusively for girls for example). However, in
the current political climate there is a distinct risk that secure accommodation might
be perceived simply as a way of locking up and punishing young offenders.
The Development of Secure Accommodation in Scotland
Secure units have their roots in the Approved Schools, the successors to the
Reformatories and Industrial Schools of the Victorian era. Over the years, these schools
came to be funded and regulated by the state; in Scotland, under the Home and Health
Department of the then Scottish Office. (The Scottish Office in Edinburgh being the
administrative base of central government until the advent of the Scottish Parliament
in 1999.) The move to establish secure units came as a result of difficulties faced by
Approved Schools in dealing with some of the more recalcitrant youngsters in their
care. During the 1950s discussions on this subject took place amongst approved school
managers in Scotland and England. In Scotland, the precursor to this was a riot at one
approved school, St Johns in Glasgow, led by a ‘particularly violent 15-year-old boy’
(Millham et al., 1978). In 1962, during a time of rising public concern over juvenile
delinquency and, in particular, Glasgow’s ‘gang culture’, the government established a
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The Expansion of Secure Accommodation in Scotland: in the Best Interests of the Child?
secure facility at Rossie Farm Approved School in the north-east of Scotland. Rossie
Farm had a tough reputation and was set in moorland many miles from the cities of
the central belt which would provide most of its ‘business’. Secure accommodation
expanded slowly but steadily thereafter. The Ogilvie wing in St Mary’s List D School
(as the old Approved Schools became known after the passage of the Social Work
Scotland Act 1968), opened with 18 places in 1974. Ten years later another unit attached
to Kerelaw List D School in Ayrshire opened under the auspices of Strathclyde
Regional Council, providing an additional 24 places. These units remain the largest
providers of secure accommodation in Scotland to this day. During the 1980s a handful
of short-term secure ‘placements’, attached to ‘Assessment Centres’, also existed in
other parts of the country. As residential assessment went out of fashion these centres
and the associated secure ‘placements’ disappeared, however, leaving secure facilities
concentrated in the small number of larger sites.
From the early 1990s, Edinburgh began to develop its own secure provision, rather
than relying on units many miles from the city. It now has 11 beds in two linked units;
St. Katharine’s and Howdenhall. At the point of the Executive’s recent expansion
announcement there were a total of 96 registered secure ‘placements’ in a mixture of
units, some run by local authorities, others in the voluntary sector (Scottish Executive,
2002c). All of these secure ‘placements’ are subject to approval and, until recently,
inspection by the Social Work Services Inspectorate for Scotland (SWSI). Beyond this,
the development of secure accommodation has been piecemeal and subject to little
strategic direction. Nevertheless, it has avoided the fragmentation into different types
of provision – such as private secure training centres and youth custody within the
prison service – that has been the English experience over the past decade (Goldson,
2002; Rose, 2002).
Relatively little has been written about secure accommodation in Scotland. In their
literature review for the Skinner Report, Kendrick and Fraser (1992) identify two...
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