EXTRACT: "Britain locks up many more children and young people than any other country in western Europe. The statistics for 2008-09 reveal that 64,803 youngsters were given “community remands” and that 6,556 were sent to local authority “accommodation” - effectively imprisoned - or were in actual custody. Which is to say that four times as many young people are imprisoned in the UK than in France, which has a similar population - in fact, as a proportion of the population Britain bangs up more than 14 times as many youngsters as Belgium or 20 times more than the Netherlands.
More precisely still with regards the UK statistics, 765 children aged 14 were imprisoned - with 10 and 11-year-olds being convicted or given reprimands (or final warnings) for 6,000 assorted offences. Over 70% of these were entirely non-violent in nature, while 66 of them were classified as “sex offences”. Of course, in England and Wales the age of criminal responsibility is 10, while in Scotland it is only eight. Quite obscenely, this makes the UK the worst offender for inflicting retributive punishment upon its youngsters in all of Europe - indeed, most of the world. Only countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Sudan and Myanmar/Burma have a worse record. Or, to put it another way, Turkey, Korea, Morocco, Uganda, Algeria, Uzbekistan, China, the Russian Federation, Egypt, etc have a relatively more enlightened position on this particular issue and set a higher age of criminal responsibility."
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1 comment:
Paul Verlaine has been a great source of inspiration for many artists, including me.
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