Angela Neustatter
2002

£8.95 + p&p, 144 pp
B/w illus
ISBN 978 0 903319 88 1
Buy from Central Books

We lock up more young people than any country in Europe but do we know what happens when they are put into custody? Can prison be a rehabilitative experience or does its culture make this impossible? Can it be the place to address the severe problems of abuse, violence, disadvantage, failure, and self-loathing that so many who end up inside suffer? Or is locking them up the ultimate failure of a society that cannot find a better way to deal with its problem young people?

Angela Neustatter visits young offender institutions and talks to young offenders, governors, staff, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, the Probation Service, Youth Offending Teams, voluntary agencies and campaigning organisations to find some answers to these questions and puts forward recommendations for improving the way society deals with children who break the law.

‘… a compelling, campaigning book which should give each one of us pause for thought about why so many young people are locked up, and what prison does to them …’

– Angela Devlin, The Tablet

Angela Neustatter is a journalist and writer, who for more than 25 years has specialised in writing about children, social and women’s issues. She writes regularly for the Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph Magazine and for 13 years co-edited Children First! magazine for Unicef-UK. Her books include Mixed Feelings: The experience of abortion (Pluto Press) and Hyenas in Petticoats: A look at 20 years of feminism (Harrap and Penguin).