Scottish government may introduce unlocked housing for young prisoners and nationalise secure care services.

[Scoffingbiscuits]

The Scottish government is extremely kind towards young convicted criminals. For example, until the age of 25, when they're sentenced the judge has to put what's in their best interests first and only sentence them to imprisonment as a last resort. This is what led to a young man convicted of raping a 13 year old girl in a park, twice, getting a community order to do 270 hours of community work.
It seems that they now want to make things pleasanter for young offenders who have, until now at least, been locked up for the safety of the community. It's short on detail as yet, but a warning of what's to come. The SNP are also looking at nationalising secure care services. A young person has to be very dangerous to end up locked up in Scotland these days, so let's hope that when secure care services are nationalised and the doors are unlocked all will go well for local communities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15484349/SNP-want-young-thugs-therapeutic-hubs-no-locked-doors.html?i

Do you think that’s going to make me rescind on all my arguments?

More rhetorical manipulation.

Exceptions don’t break rules, the child who did this clearly needs help and guidance to stop escalating before a lot more damage is done.

Sounds unlikely that should take place in the same school on face value.

I’m not un-empathetic @Weetabixw if it were my kid with broken ribs, I’d be seeing red too.
No parent should ever be told to just "deal with it" for the sake of the person who hurt their child.
But I think we’re falling into a trap by assuming the only two options are "keep them in class" or "do nothing." It doesn't have to be a choice between the victim’s safety and the offender’s future.
The "Zero Tolerance" approach of just kicking a kid onto the street doesn't actually work. It just creates a school-to-prison pipeline. If you expel a violent kid with no plan, they don't just disappear; they stay in the community, get worse, and usually end up committing crimes in the same place where the victim lives. It’s like trying to put out a fire by moving the burning logs to a different corner of the same wooden house.
Addressing things like poverty or trauma isn't about being "soft" or making the victim feel better—it’s pragmatic. Understanding why a kid is violent is a diagnostic tool. If a kid is acting out because of a total lack of social skills or a messed-up home life, just punishing them without fixing the root cause is like throwing vodka on the fire.
Justice isn't just about the immediate "eye for an eye" punishment but about making sure that kid doesn't grow up to be a violent adult who creates ten more victims down the line. Protecting the victim today is the priority, but fixing the behaviour is the only way to protect the everyone tomorrow.

Oh well done, you know some long words. I think that we all know that children are particularly badly affected by extreme bullying - for life. Why is it so important that the violent bully is still a child, while the child victims are completely disregarded? And I'm not exaggerating the violence. Just have a look at the examples on this thread: Violence in our schools | Mumsnet
I'm also in no way advocating extreme punishment. We need to have basic punishments in schools - detentions and so on for low level bad behaviour, suspensions for worse behaviour, and permanent expulsion for very bad behaviour. The threat of expulsion alone would reduce the amount of violence. Parents need to be involved. And we need to have a justice system which actually punishes criminals under the age of 25. At the moment the police are completely helpless - they know that if they charge a young person there will be no consequences even then. And for children with really serious emotional problems leading to violence, there should be special schools where they can really be helped to turn things around - as there are in England.

That’s nowhere near as clever a response as you may think it is.

You do realise that there is worse violence against school staff in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK?
From Channel 4:
"Many schools in Scotland have adopted a so-called “restorative” approach to behaviour management, which promotes dialogue rather than traditional disciplinary measures.
The Scottish Government named it as a “key approach” in guidance for schools in 2017 but many teachers raised concerns with us about how it works in practice.
Mr Corbett said a restorative approach was only “appropriate for low-level disruption, not for more serious issues”.
He said: “It would often take the form of the pupil being marched by a member of senior management to the teacher who was at the heart of the incident, and some kind of forced apology being made, and that being the end of the matter. Then they’re straight back in the classroom, and that’s just wholly inappropriate.”"
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-violent-injuries-against-school-staff-most-common-in-scotland#

Can you answer the question?

Where are you placing the violent child?

If it is with adults then new schools are needed.

If the function of keeping the violent child in a main stream school is to socialise the child with his/her peers then that is assigining a support role to a child.

Definitely not an exception.

I'm guessing you've not been in a school in years.

I agree that many petty offenses don’t deserve prison time. We would all be better served by people who commit relatively small non-violent crimes learning to be better people than rotting in a prison cell.

violent crimes are different. I don’t think we treat them seriously enough. Sexual crimes in particular need to carry much harsher punishments. These are people who have shown that they may not be capable of even existing in the wider society again.

These things are happening on a daily basis BECAUSE restorative approaches have been proven to be utterly useless. Ask any teacher!

I’ve reluctantly read the article, because I hate DM links. For those that don’t want to read it, or can’t understand it:

• this is about under 18s, aka children
• secure care (i.e. being locked up) will still be used for serious/violent child offenders
• Strikes me as a good thing that private companies won’t be making a profit out of child offenders any more

My point wasn’t to show off large words, I just find it hard to respond when there’s so many emotive phrases placed in an argument.

It’s difficult to see beyond the emotion and get to the actual points made, and is probably why I’d be terrible at criminal law.

I don’t disagree with most of what you’ve said, you’ve made the point that there should be a sliding scale of consequences (suspensions/detentions etc..) which makes sense, I also have never said that I don’t think there should be any circumstances where a child is removed from school.

It would be ridiculous to say that child should be kept in school no matter what.

But it would need to be something extreme, some on this thread are talking about excluding for disruption, minor violence etc..

Too many have fallen for media rhetoric that there are no consequences for anyone under 25, it is easy to find extreme cases where serious mistakes have been made but in most cases we don’t know what the consequences have been or what action plans are in place or how the child involved has progressed.

One poster for example has said that there are no consequences for violence, but police have charged the child she’s concerned about.

This is a complete juxtaposition as being taken through the justice system will bring consequences.

The issue here is the age old one that justice should never be delivered by the victim and child offenders should not be treated as adults.

Yes the under 25 policy is extremely controversial, but here talking about school children here.

Eh - not exactly no.

Im usually there for pick-up daily.

More adultification, this concerns developing children.

They should not be seen as, or treated as, adults.

Err, what do you think the consequences’ are in Scotland for an under 16 being charged with assault?

I cannot believe that you are taking this reporting in the Daily Mail seriously…!

I’m no daily mail reader but what inaccuracies are there in the story?

That’s ridiculous.

Socialisation is a shared environment , not a job.

You are deliberately misrepresenting presence and responsibility.

Educators, therapists and aids are the people assigned support roles, not child members of a community.

Inclusion is about professional management, not peer-led rehabilitation.

The possible consequences are available online, they are no secret.

For a non-serious assault (12-15)

Compulsory Supervision Order (CSO): The most common outcome. The child remains at home but must work with a social worker.

Specific Conditions: The panel may require the child to attend counselling, stay away from certain people/places, or adhere to a curfew.

Place of Safety/Foster Care: In extreme cases, if the child is deemed a danger to themselves or others, they may be required to live in a residential school or secure accommodation.

Would you prefer they were sent to Victorian Workhouses?

This is children we’re talking about here.

Children under 12 can't be charged with a crime. Children over that age can't be sent to prison - all young offender institutions were re-purposed about a year ago. Those children are now in 4 secure care centres, which are run by care staff (not prison wardens). But being sent to one of these would be an exceptional outcome.

As usual with the Daily Mail they have isolated a few details to make the story invoke rage in the hard of thinking.

Those who can’t/don’t want to understand.

Well this article provides more detail and isn't from the Daily Mail. The proposed measures are clearly an attempt to soften the justice system farther, and the SNP accepts that there will be a risk to local communities.
SNP Proposes 'Flex Secure' Hubs for Teen Offenders Without Locked Doors - British Brief

Britbrief are as right-wing, if not more so than the daily mail.

Style themselves as American style ‘libertarians’, unlikely to get a balanced opinion there.

Well the child who assaulted my nephew - their 6th charge in 18 months - was given a warning and that was all. Was in school the next day because he had just returned from a temporary exclusion and so couldn’t be excluded again. That is how victims of violence are treated in Scotland. Like shit on a shoe.

Support humans.

You are placing the other children into the school as support humans.

The adults have paid jobs and specialist roles and are making choices about allowing the violent child access to the other children.

That other Posters son should not be expected to provide socialisation is a shared environment which included his attacker or any other child who chooses to engage in violent acts in school.

That other Posters child is only there to be educated.

Within your system that child is expected to be a support human and also learn how to be violent and return equal or greater force to the violent child as a price for his education.

Expecting the violent child to benefit from peer to peer socialisation is assigned support roles to the other children.

The school community police officer apologised to his parents. The head teacher apologised to the parents too but both pointed out that there was absolutely nothing else they could do as their hands had been tied by Scottish government policies.