‘Unaccountable’ care homes calling police too often

Systemic problems are leading to young people from children’s homes in England and Wales “being criminalised at excessively high rates”, according to new research.

The study by the Howard League for Penal Reform found that levels of criminalisation increase dramatically between the ages of 13 and 15, with children aged ten to 12 in the care of local authorities almost five times more likely than those aged 13 to 15 to have contact with police.

The charity believes that staff in children’s homes are too frequently calling out the police, often over minor incidents, and that there appears to be a ‘tipping point’ around the age of 13, where these children lose society’s sympathy and “are pushed into the criminal justice system”. 

Its report Criminal care: Children’s homes and criminalising children, published on March 30, warned that a lack of transparency, particularly in relation to services outsourced to private companies, has meant homes are unaccountable, bad practices are hidden and children suffer.

It says these problems are widely recognised by the government, the police and other relevant authorities, but are not being addressed and calls for more support for “looked after” children during their teenage years so they are not “pushed into the criminal justice system by homes that are supposed to be helping them”.

A Freedom of Information request by the Howard League attempted to discern the number of times police were called out to children’s homes and the number of arrests made between 2012/13 and 2014/15.

All but one force replied to the request, however they all reported difficulties in accessing and collating the information.

The charity said each force differed in its recording systems and search capabilities, meaning no meaningful comparisons could be drawn, but the reasons each force gave for failing to comply with the request were broadly the same.

These were:

•There were no identifiers on police systems for marking the incident as having occurred at a children’s home, which meant that it was impossible to easily run searches for incidents at children’s homes on electronic databases; and

•Records relating to call-outs and arrests were held separately and it was not easy to cross-refer.

Forces told the charity that private contractors – which run three quarters of England’s children’s homes – had used police cells as respite to cover staff shortages and because staff were not trained and competent to deal with children’s behaviour.

Police suggested that they were picking up the pieces of a “social care deficit”, and that children were being pushed into the criminal justice process rather than receiving the support they needed from local authorities and children’s homes.

The charity also heard there was a lack of confidence in the standard of children’s homes and a perception by police that vulnerable children would be better cared for in cells.

The report supports the conclusions of a House of Commons Justice Committee inquiry in 2013, which noted that more effort was needed from local authorities, children’s homes and prosecutors to prevent unnecessary criminalisation of vulnerable children in care.

National Police Chiefs’ Council leads for children and young people and custody, Deputy Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney and Temporary Chief Constable Nick Ephgrave, said children in care are a ‘key priority’ in its children and young people strategy, published last week (see PP498).

“It is vital all agencies work together more effectively to get their response right,” they said.

“The police should not be called to minor incidents which would otherwise be dealt with in a family environment. If this is not appropriate, officers should consider tools such as restorative justice or community resolutions. Every effort should be made to avoid holding young people in police cells overnight.”

Chief Executive of the Howard League, Frances Crook, said: “These children have been taken into care because they are in dire need and their parents cannot, or wi