{"id":112516,"date":"2021-04-08T15:32:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T15:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1277529"},"modified":"2021-04-08T15:32:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T15:32:09","slug":"locking-up-children-in-the-name-of-charity-is-yet-another-reason-why-we-must-kill-the-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/04\/08\/locking-up-children-in-the-name-of-charity-is-yet-another-reason-why-we-must-kill-the-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Locking up children in the name of \u2018charity\u2019 is yet another reason why we must Kill the Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protesters up and down the country<\/a> have taken to the streets, and a broad-based coalition<\/a> has come together to fight the Tory government’s proposed\u00a0Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill<\/a>. Groups have united against the authoritarian bill through which the Tories intend to crackdown on our right to protest<\/a>, increase police powers<\/a>, and criminalise\u00a0Traveller communities and rough sleepers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, one disturbing element of the bill seems to have gone under the radar – government plans for ‘secure schools’. Concerned by this, the Coalition for Anti-Racist Educators (CARE) took to social media to shed light on what the proposed draconian bill<\/a> will mean for youth ‘justice’.<\/p>\n

The bill proposes<\/a> to make setting up and running a secure school – in which children and young people will be held captive – a “charitable activity”. It also proposes harsher sentencing and additional surveillance of children and young people who are in trouble with the law.<\/p>\n

What are secure schools?<\/h5>\n

Secure schools are part of the government\u2019s plan to reform<\/a>\u00a0the UK’s youth justice system. Autonomous trusts will run these ‘schools’. The Ministry of Justice will have oversight, not the Department for Education. If implemented, the bill<\/a> will “ensure that operating a secure school can be a charitable activity”, and encourage new “charitable” providers to expand the youth carceral\u00a0state<\/a>.\u00a0The government claims<\/a> that \u201csecure school providers will take a child-focused and trauma-informed approach to youth custody\u201d.<\/p>\n

CARE highlighted that these plans will criminalise children and fail to deal with the root causes of their trauma. It also set out that secure schools will essentially be “a rebranded version of Young Offenders\u2019 Institutions”:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Secure schools have been snuck into the policing bill… Yet another sinister way in which the government would rather pump money into locking people up, in this case children, instead of dealing with systemic social issues that cause trauma in the first place #KilltheBill<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/72xTs2Gpky<\/a><\/p>\n

— CARE2Liberate (@CARE2Liberate) April 4, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n