Young people victims of an uncaring state

The British establishment, the state and its institutions, the media – none of them really give a damn about young people. And if they say otherwise, they’re lying. That’s the conclusion not only from the Jimmy Savile scandal but an investigation into the deaths of children and young people in prison too.

If the BBC had really been concerned about Savile’s predatory behaviour on and off their premises, they would have acted. But Savile was made into a household name by the BBC and they weren’t going to give that up. So while Savile’s abuse of young children was the talk of Fleet Street, inaction was the word. It was a case of the BBC will fix it.

The same goes for the police and the tabloid press. Clearly, the victims were disbelieved from the off. It makes you wonder whether Savile was part of a much larger ring of predators, including establishment figures, who took advantage of vulnerable children.

Virtually all of Savile’s victims are alive. Which is more than you can say about
Joseph Scholes, a 16-year-old boy who killed himself at Stoke Heath Young Offender Institution in 2002. His mother Yvonne Bailey says her son “died in fear and distress hanging from the window bars of his squalid cell in a children’s prison”.

There were widespread calls made for a public inquiry following his death. That inquiry never took place and since Joseph, nine children and 191 young people aged 24 and under have died in prison or, in the case of two of the children, imprisoned in a secure training centre.

A new report by INQUEST and the Prison Reform Trust says that the inquests and investigations into deaths between 2003 and 2010 reveal that they were often very vulnerable and that none received the level of support and protection they needed. Or deserved, one could add. Fatally Flawed: Has the state learned lessons from the deaths of children and young people in prison? says:

“Often overlooked and neglected in a regime that does not differentiate between young adults and adults, there is little institutional understanding of, or attention to, their specific needs.”  It found that the children and young people who died:

• were some of the most disadvantaged in society and had experienced problems with mental health, self-harm, alcohol and/or drugs;
• had significant interaction with community agencies before entering prison yet in many cases there were failures in communication and information exchange between prisons and those agencies;
• despite their vulnerability, they had not been diverted out of the criminal justice system at an early stage and had ended up remanded or sentenced to prison;
• were placed in prisons with unsafe environments and cells;
• experienced poor medical care and limited access to therapeutic services in prison;
• had been exposed to bullying and treatment such as segregation and restraint;
• were failed by the systems set up to safeguard them from harm.

“Our findings indicate there have been failures in how the state treats children and young

people in conflict with the law and that the learning and recommendations from inquests

and investigations into previous deaths have not been properly implemented.”  

Lest anyone forgets, the BBC is part of the establishment too. Its so-called independence from the state is more fictional than real. The BBC’s one-sided coverage, from the struggles of Palestinians to strikes and protest actions at home, is self-evident.

There is a stench of decay throughout Britain’s dominant institutions, which the right wing will take advantage of. Tories will use the Savile saga to raise the question of ending state subsidies for the BBC through the licence fee and open up the corporation to commercial challenges from the likes of Murdoch. And we all know how honest, transparent and objective his news empire is.

A thorough-going democratic transformation is absolutely essential to halt a descent into a deeper authoritarian-corporate rule. That’s why a number of groups are backing the November 17 assembly with the aim of developing a new, rights-based, people’s constitution.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Policing and mental health body is 'cosmetic exercise'

The Commission on Policing and Mental Health has been set up following concerns about “how police respond to people with mental health conditions”, according to Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe, Britain’s most senior police officer.

But the narrow terms of reference – and the exclusion of agencies who specialise in the areas of black deaths in custody – indicate that the new body is heavily weighted to cast sand in the eyes of those seeking positive change.

Considering that Afro-Caribbean communities are in the front-line of deaths in custody associated with mental health problems, why are the specialist campaign groups Inquest and Black Mental UK being excluded from the Commission?

Hogan-Howe promised an independent body would be set up after an inquest into the death of musician Sean Rigg found that police had used an “unsuitable” level of force before his death.

Rigg, a 40-year-old musician and karate expert, died at Brixton police station on 21 October 2008 of cardiac arrest after being restrained by four officers. Since then, Rigg’s relatives and supporters have been campaigning to establish the truth about his death.

Even the toothless Independent Police Complaints Commission was forced to concede that not only the police, but also the South London and Maudsley Mental Health Trust had not responded properly. It concluded that Rigg’s death was “symptom of a deeper problem – the linkage between mental illness and deaths in or following police custody”.

This is mealy-mouthed phraseology, considering that some 50% of those who lose their lives in police custody are under the care of mental health services and that a significant proportion are black men.

The inquest verdict into Riggs’ death was far more damning: the jury found that the Met and the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust were guilty of a catalogue of errors which “more than minimally contributed to his [Rigg’s] death”.

The Rigg family’s solicitor, Daniel Machover, pointed to the whitewash nature of the IPCC’s findings when the inquest jury delivered its verdict: “....while the IPCC gave the police a clean bill of health in 2010 … the inquest jury was highly critical of every aspect of the police conduct, including the eight minutes restraint in the prone position, a fact totally missed by the IPCC”.

As Black Mental Health UK points out, detention rates for people from the UK’s Afro-Caribbean community doubled during the period of 2005–2010. Afro-Caribbean's are 50% more likely to enter the system via the criminal justice system or the police, 44% more likely to be sectioned, 29% more likely to be forcibly restrained, 50% more likely to be placed in seclusion and make up 30% of in patients on medium secure psychiatric wards despite having similar rates of mental illness as British white people.

The Commission on Policing and Mental Health is to be chaired by the establishment figure, Lord Adebowale. Black Mental Health UK director Matilda MacAttram, said that excluding experts from BMH UK and Inquest, “who have the critical insight needed in this area which would ensure the transformation in police treatment of this vulnerable group, leaves one with the impression that this is nothing but a cosmetic exercise, which will not result in any positive change.”

Given the discrediting of the police in the wake of the independent Hillsborough report, state agencies are struggling to retain credibility, and not only amongst black and minority communities. Cuts in the health service mean that even well-intentioned people in long-established mental health institutions like the Maudsley Trust are failing in their duty of care. Creating toothless commissions cannot disguise this harsh reality.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary