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[17 August 2007] - In April 2007, the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice adopted a resolution which advocates national action plans to reduce the imprisonment of juveniles; to set targets for fewer children in prison; and to use diversion and restorative justice as alternatives to custody. The Prison Reform Trust and The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund has announced the start of a £1.5 million five-year strategy to reduce child and youth imprisonment in the UK. Dr Astrid Honeyman, Chief Executive of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, said today: "The Fund is pleased to provide a grant of £1.5 million over five years to support this crucial work. We are confident that it will contribute significantly to realising our objectives of reducing child and youth imprisonment and promoting the adoption as government policy of effective alternatives to custody." Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust (PRT), said: "By ploughing on with punitive policies and an over-reliance on imprisonment, all we are doing is damaging and excluding still further a generation of young people already existing at the margins of society. It's time to stop locking up so many children and young people. We need to join up social policy with criminal justice policy and use more constructive measures to cut youth crime". The PRT has developed the five-year strategy to work with powerful partners, including non-governmental organisations, monitors and commissioners and groups of service users and providers, to change government policy. "The goal is to reduce child and youth imprisonment, so that we no longer hold the shameful record of incarcerating more young people than any other country in Western Europe," Ms Lyon added. The number of children and young people being sentenced to custody has almost doubled in ten years. According to home office figures, in February 2007 there were 11,872 under 21-year-olds in prison including 2,418 under 18. Prisons are awash with record numbers of teenagers and young adult men in their early twenties. There has been a measurable increase in levels of mental illness, distress and self-harm. Reconviction rates have soared to an average of 78 per cent for 18-20 year olds and over 80 per cent for under 18s. One young man in custody said: "I'm not being funny but I think the harder the prison, the more worse it turns you mentally, you know in your head." This is a complex problem demanding a range of solutions co-ordinated coherently to create a new and better framework. PRT's strategy comprises: Over the next few months, PRT will appoint a programme director and agree initial partnership arrangements. Further information pdf: http://www.theworkcontinues.org/press_02_May_07.shtml
an examination of the social and economic costs of youth imprisonment and its alternatives to present to the Treasury and government departments a coherent economic case for reform