‘A Poor Prospect Indeed’: The State’s Disavowal of Child Abuse Victims in Youth Custody, 1960–1990

Ben Jarman; Caroline Lanskey

doi:10.3390/soc9020027

Abstract

Child abuse in youth custody in England and Wales is receiving an unprecedented degree of official attention. Historic allegations of abuse by staff in custodial institutions which held children are now being heard by the courts and by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and some criminal trials have resulted in convictions. A persistent question prompted by these investigations is that of why the victims of custodial child abuse were for so long denied recognition as such, or any form of redress. Drawing on original documentary research, this article aims to explain why and how state authorities in England and Wales failed to recognise the victimisation of children held in penal institutions between 1960 and 1990, and argues that this failure constitutes a disavowal of the state’s responsibility. We show that the victims of custodial child abuse were the victims of state crimes by omission, because the state failed to recognise or to uphold a duty of care. We argue further that this was possible because the occupational cultures and custodial practices of penal institutions failed to recognise the structural and agentic vulnerabilities of children. Adult staff were granted enormous discretionary power which entitled them to act (and to define their actions) without effective constraint. These findings, we suggest, have implications for how custodial institutions for children should think about the kinds of abuse which are manifest today.

Availability

Published Open Access. Version of record available via https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/2/27. Slides from a public presentation based on this article can be found via https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/300721.

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CC BY 4.0

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Citation

BibTeX citation:

@article{jarmanPoorProspectIndeed2019,
  author = {Jarman, Ben and Lanskey, Caroline},
  title = {“{A} {Poor} {Prospect} {Indeed}”: {The} {State’s} {Disavowal}
    of {Child} {Abuse} {Victims} in {Youth} {Custody,} 1960–1990},
  journal = {Societies},
  volume = {9},
  number = {2},
  pages = {27},
  date = {2019-04-18},
  url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/2/27},
  doi = {10.3390/soc9020027},
  note = {1 citations (Crossref) {[}2022-06-27{]}},
  langid = {en-GB},
  abstract = {Child abuse in youth custody in England and Wales is
    receiving an unprecedented degree of official attention. Historic
    allegations of abuse by staff in custodial institutions which held
    children are now being heard by the courts and by the Independent
    Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and some criminal trials
    have resulted in convictions. A persistent question prompted by
    these investigations is that of why the victims of custodial child
    abuse were for so long denied recognition as such, or any form of
    redress. Drawing on original documentary research, this article aims
    to explain why and how state authorities in England and Wales failed
    to recognise the victimisation of children held in penal
    institutions between 1960 and 1990, and argues that this failure
    constitutes a disavowal of the state’s responsibility. We show that
    the victims of custodial child abuse were the victims of state
    crimes by omission, because the state failed to recognise or to
    uphold a duty of care. We argue further that this was possible
    because the occupational cultures and custodial practices of penal
    institutions failed to recognise the structural and agentic
    vulnerabilities of children. Adult staff were granted enormous
    discretionary power which entitled them to act (and to define their
    actions) without effective constraint. These findings, we suggest,
    have implications for how custodial institutions for children should
    think about the kinds of abuse which are manifest today.}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Jarman, B., & Lanskey, C. (2019). “A Poor Prospect Indeed”: The State’s Disavowal of Child Abuse Victims in Youth Custody, 1960–1990 . Societies, 9(2), 27.