Phil Scraton

'Childhood' in 'crisis'?

Examining debates concerning children and young people, this text discusses the politics of childhood , focusing on topics such as: the family; education and schooling; mental health; crime and justice; and sexuality.

Self-Harm and Suicide

The marginalization of ‘criminal women’ is well documented. In contrast to male offenders, the assumed ‘exceptional’ behaviour of women who offend is often interpreted as irrational, unpredictable and a denial of ascribed servile femininity. Frances Heidensohn (1985, p.74) identifies two ‘widely held views about female offenders’. The first centres on assumptions of abnormality and individual pathology. Second, those who commit crimes that carry a prison sentence are considered ‘especially … mentally ill or otherwise highly deviant’, explaining why there are so few women prisoners. The ‘implicit assumption being’ that women prisoners are ‘less reclaimable, more vile, more “unnatural” than male’.

Degradation, Harm and Survival in a Women's Prison

Based on primary research for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission this article focuses on the conditions and regimes under which women and girls are imprisoned in the North of Ireland. Extensive interviews with women place their experiences and reflections at the heart of the analysis and are supported by full observational access to the daily routines in operation at the Mourne House Unit at Maghaberry Prison. Of particular concern are institutionalised practices regarding self-harm, suicide prevention and the pathologisation of girls and women with mental health needs.

Lost Lives, Hidden Voices: Truth and Controversial Deaths

She was born in Merseyside in the 1920s, imprisoned under order aged 11. Classified ‘feeble-minded’ her offending behaviour was unspecified ‘persistent theft’. Incarceration lasted forty-five years, behind the bars of harsh regimes. Judged aggressive and violent, she self-harmed. Jane Doe lives in recent history, an object of psychiatric and surgical experimentation. She is one of many women – and men – of great courage and determination whose private resistance to public degradation led eventually to release. Her twilight years have been lived out in the day-to-day routines of a society which, for so long, denied her existence. No explanations, no apologies and no acknowledgement of the institutionalised brutalisation of a locked-in ward. For much of the twentieth century, Jane Doe and those similarly classified, including children born and brought up in ‘mental hospitals’, endured enforced mutilation, electrically induced convulsions, drugging and ritual humiliation. Their bodies and minds constituted unrestricted test sites in medicine’s obsession with the identification and

The Incarceration of Women

T his section focuses on issues related to the supervision and incarceration of women. Drawing from historical examples of incarceration to modern-day policies, this section first looks at the treatment of women in prison and the challenges that women face. Following this discussion, this section highlights how the differential pathways of female offending affect the unique needs for women under the correctional system and presents a review of the tenets of gender-responsive programming. This section concludes with a discussion about the lives of women following incarceration and how policy decisions about offending have often succeeded in the “jailing” of women, even after their release from prison.

The legacy of Hillsborough: liberating truth, challenging power:

In April 1989, ninety-six men, women and children, supporters of Liverpool Football Club, died in a severe crush at an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield. Hundreds were injured and thousands traumatised. Within hours, the causes and circumstances of the disaster were contested. While a judicial inquiry found serious institutional failures in the policing and management of the capacity crowd, no criminal prosecutions resulted, and the inquests returned ‘accidental death’ verdicts. Immediately, the authorities claimed that drunken, violent fans had caused the fatal crush. Denied legitimacy, survivors’ accounts revealed a different story criticising the parlous state of the stadium, inadequate stewarding, negligent policing, failures in the emergency response and flawed processes of inquiry and investigation. Reflecting on two decades of research and contemporaneous interviews with bereaved families and survivors, this article contrasts the official discourse with those alternative accounts – the ‘view from below’. It demonstrates the influence of powerful institutional interests on the inquiries and investigations. It maps the breakthrough to full documentary disclosure following the appointment of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, its research and key findings published in September 2012. The campaigns by families and survivors were vindicated and the fans, including those who died, were exonerated. The process is discussed as an alternative method for liberating truth, securing acknowledgement and pursuing justice.

Children, Rights and Justice in Northern Ireland: Community and Custody:

This article is based on primary research conducted with children in community and custodial settings in Northern Ireland. It provides an analysis of the social, economic and political context in which childrens rights are routinely breached. Presenting consultations with children in the community, the article considers the impact of negative assumptions, disrespect and exclusion from participation. It demonstrates how the rights of socially excluded and marginalized children are consistently undermined. Further, it draws on the experiences of children and the views of staff in considering the rights of children in custody. In conclusion, the article explores the contributions of critical analysis and rights-based discourses within an increasingly punitive climate.

Childhood in transition: growing up in ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is in the early stages of transition from conflict, but progress is regularly affected by political and public discontent. A divided landscape, segregated and under-resourced communities are enduring legacies of ‘the Conflict’. Yet the political will to tackle social and community division, consult with and support communities has been lacking. Grounded in six communities most affected by poverty and the Conflict this paper illustrates the difficulties, tensions and contradictions experienced during transition and how, in the process of ‘change’, children and young people have been silenced, marginalised and demonised.

Young People, Conflict and Regulation

Set against the progress claimed since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, this article reflects the reality of life for children and young people as they negotiate the aftermath of the Conflict in Northern Ireland. Their experiences of informal and formal policing, community and State control, demonstrate the need to understand the lasting impacts of the Conflict when developing policies and practices affecting their lives. At a crucial defining period in the devolution of justice and policing, and based on primary research conducted by the authors, the article establishes key rights‐compliant principles central to reform of youth justice.

Children's rights: rhetoric and reality

‘The Committee welcomes’, ‘reminds’, ‘notes’, ‘encourages’, ‘urges’, ‘recommends’, ‘reiterates’, ‘is concerned’, ‘notes with regret’; words that open the 85 paragraphs constituting the October 2008...