In Loco Parentis

The charity Barnardo's reports that Britain is putting more children in prison than any European country apart from those famous paragons, Russia and Ukraine. Over the past decade of toughness on crime and fairness being the watchword, there has been a five-fold increase in custodial sentences for ten to fourteen-year-olds. There has been no corresponding increase in serious crime by children, presumably thanks to the deterrent effect on those who plan on getting caught. Nearly eighty per cent of the children who are being imprisoned re-offend within a year of release, and the Youth Justice Board is investing all of five per cent of its expenditure in crime prevention. According to Barnardo's, the annual cost of imprisoning a child is equal to the cost of a six-year education at Eton; although given the sort of thing Eton turns out, imprisonment may well turn out to have a smaller social cost.

If the Ministry of Incarceration and Deportation, or its shadows in the one and a bit opposition parties, have anything to say about the matter, the country's leading liberal newspaper does not appear to have noticed.