Child detention levels 'alarming'

Dr Williams will blame unsecured lending and punitive interest rates

Too many children in Britain are being given custodial prison sentences, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Dr Rowan Williams said the number being criminalised was "alarming" and was "something to worry about".

The archbishop spoke after the UK's children's commissioners claimed youngsters were being "demonised" and locked up too frequently.

Dr Williams told the BBC: "I think compared with the rest of Europe we are in a very punitive frame of mind."

Speaking on the BBC's Newsnight programme, the archbishop, head of the Church of England, said: "I think it's a very bad position to be in.

"Sometimes the public rhetoric that you find about children and young people does suggest we don't really like them very much.

"But in a more quantifiable kind of way, if you look at the number of children who have custodial sentences in this country it's an alarming statistic.

"You've got, I think, 25,000 children given custodial sentences in a three-year period quite recently. You've got 30 deaths of children in custody in an 18-year period.

"That has to be something to worry about."

'Punitive approach'

On Monday, a joint report by the UK's four children's commissioners said attitudes towards youngsters were hardening across the country.

The experts said crime committed by children had fallen between 2002 and 2006, but the numbers being subjected to the criminal justice system had gone up by just over a quarter.

England has a very low age of criminal responsibility and high numbers of children are locked up Report by UK children's commissioners

Public bodies are legally bound to put the best interests of a child first in decision-making. But the commissioners said this key legal safeguard had failed in some parts of the youth justice system for England and Wales.

"The system is dominated by a punitive approach and does not sufficiently distinguish between adult offenders and children who break the law," says the report.

"Compared to other European countries, England has a very low age of criminal responsibility and high numbers of children are locked up. Too many children are being criminalised and brought into the youth justice system at an increasingly young age."

Responding to the report, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said the government was "100% committed to improving children's wellbeing".

She pointed to some successes - such as increased funding for schools - but said the government was not "complacent" about the work that still needed to be done.

Paul Cavadino, chief executive of crime reduction charity Nacro, agreed that custody was overused.

"Every year we lock up thousands of young people with histories of physical and sexual abuse, parental neglect, family conflict, school exclusion, substance abuse and mental health problems," he said.

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