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UK: Corrective "training"

01 September 1995

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Michael Howard's latest proposals for young people involve privatising a military corrective training centre (a military prison or glasshouse) and holding persistent young offenders there with soldiers in a regime described by ex-inmate soldiers as humiliating and degrading. Ironically, his own officials have previously warned that harsh boot camps using humiliating and degrading tactics are an expensive failure, causing riots but not succeeding either in diverting young people from crime or reducing overcrowding in prisons. Despite such a discouraging lack of support, and a universally derisive response from penal experts, Howard is said to be adamant to push his plans through, particularly in the light of the modification of the original plans for a tough regime at the experimental "boot camp" proper in Warrington, Cheshire. Billed as the tough answer to juvenile crime, the planned punitive programme has been softened to include a large amount of education, vocational training and "life skills", with just an hour a day's physical education. Howard, though, is clearly resolutely committed to creating a regime which makes life hell for inmates, reducing them to tears of pain and humilation, as an ex-inmate soldier said of the Colchester centre. Independent 25, 28.8.95; 15.9.95.

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