Archive for April, 2008

Thanks to Comic Relief

We are very excited that Comic Relief has given us a really substantial grant to expand our legal team and take on an expert lawyer in mental health and young people.В  Look out for the ad next month and if you know someone who might be interested, tell them to check our website.В  This is [...]

April 29, 2008   Posted in: Howard League  No Comments

Attempted suicide should not result in charges

Update on last entry:
Our lawyer made written representations to the prison and the lad had the charges against him dropped.В  No one should ever face disciplinary charges for attempting suicide or self-injury – indeed that is exactly what the prison rules say.В  So not only was this prison acting with consumate cruelty but it was [...]

April 17, 2008   Posted in: Government policy, Self-injuring  No Comments

Private secure training centres have twice as many assaults

There are twice as many assaults in the privately run secure training centres as there are in the secure children’s homes, so much for the private sector leading the way.
A Parliamentary Question tabled by Jenny Willott MP, elicited the information that in 10 months until January this year, there were 846 child on child assaults, [...]

April 14, 2008   Posted in: Government policy  No Comments

Presenting research to the European Parliament

I have just come back from a meeting in the Eurpean Parliament in Brussels where we presented the research conducted by Defence for Children International and the Howard League in four countries (Netherlands, England and Wales, Belgium and France).
A Dutch MEP, Ms Hennis-Plasschaert, is tabling a series of questions to the European Commission asking that [...]

April 10, 2008   Posted in: Government policy, Howard League  No Comments