Diane described the units as "not pleasant places"

At one stage in her teens, 18-year-old Diane* says she was being locked up twice each year.

"Sometimes, when I came up before the judge in court, I'd plead guilty to stuff I hadn't done just to get locked up. I didn't mind at the time, I preferred being locked up to being at home.

"I've been in custody six times - in four different secure units. The first time I was about 13 years old. The last time was when I was 16. I was given a one-year sentence and did six months."

She is not keen to reveal what she did to deserve one year in custody, but she concedes it was "bad stuff".

Quick transfer

Diane, who is now a full-time student, says the standards of care differed dramatically in each institution she was sent to.

During her last sentence she noticed a huge change when she was moved from a facility in the South East to another one in Hull.

Things in Hull were much better. You'd have one-to-one sessions with staff who would try and help you solve your problems

"I ended up making a complaint against the staff in the South East because they wouldn't provide any ethnic food for me. I was young and I was used to eating African food. The Muslims get halal food, so why couldn't I get African food?

"The way the staff treated me wasn't very good. As soon as I made the complaint, I was taken out of there and put in another unit in Hull.

"Even though it was much further from where I lived, things in Hull were much better. You'd have one-to-one sessions with staff who would try and help you solve your problems."

Her only visitors were from the Howard League for Penal Reform, who helped her to find a place to live when she was finally released.

Parental responsibility

Diane described her family situation as "messed up" - her father died in 1996 and her mother later remarried. She did not get on with her stepfather and soon began to get into trouble.

"He shaved my head - he said it was discipline or something. But I was brought up in Europe, he wasn't. He didn't understand that you can't just shave someone's head. After that, I didn't want to listen to anyone."

She says inmates in the units helped to teach her the life skills that her parents never did.

It took them six times of putting me into custody before I realised for myself that what I was doing was wrong

"You have four areas that your parents are meant to develop in you as part of growing up - emotional, social, psychological and intellectual.

"If you don't learn them from your parents, you've got to learn them from other people.

"When you're in a secure unit, you meet different people from different cultures. You meet people who you make a bond with who you wouldn't even meet on the outside.

"A lot of the people I met in the South East had a lot of bad issues in their lives. Some had been abused by their grandparents - all sorts of stuff that I never believed was possible."

But overall she does not believe she was treated particularly well by the authorities. She says she had to teach herself that what she was doing was wrong to break the cycle of imprisonment.

"Before I got put into custody I had an initial assessment. Obviously the assessments weren't good enough.

"It took them six times of putting me into custody before I realised for myself that what I was doing was wrong.

"I'm sure if they'd really look at me properly, they would have realised it was doing me no good, and they could have given me proper help on the outside."