Figures out in June suggest that the number of children being taken into care is at its highest ever. Last month the children and family courts service received over 1100 care applications, a 25% increase on this time last year. Itself a disturbing statistic, it becomes even more so when looked at in a wider context. A government report from 2002 states that a staggering 49% of children who have been in care will end up in the prison system. They make up 23% of the total prison population.
The link between growing up in care and later being incarcerated is only one part of a larger and more complex problem. Since the 1990’s the UK prison population has almost doubled and a look at the statistics tells a distressing story. 29% of the prison population have suffered childhood abuse, 46% came from homes in which they either experienced or witnessed violence, 15% were homeless immediately prior to incarceration and 62% have drug problems. 90% of those in prison show signs of a mental health problem and 70% have two or more disorders. Almost the entire prison population has experienced mental health problems or homelessness, suffered abuse or violence as a child, been addicted to drugs, or grown up in care. Prisons have become holding pens for society’s most vulnerable members
[For more of this story, written by Mike Snelle, go to http://www.independent.co.uk/l...r-life-10409737.html]
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