Care home shortages force scores of children to stay in juvenile detention

SCORES of children, including a girl with severe learning difficulties, have been forced to stay in a juvenile justice facility even after they were granted bail.

Figures obtained by The Detail show that many children accused of crimes have no option but to stay at Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre in Bangor, Co Down - the only detention facility for children in Northern Ireland - even though a judge has ordered their release.

Between 2021 and 2023, the Department of Justice recorded 148 delays in releasing children on bail, mainly due to issues in getting their bail address approved by police and social services.

And bail delays are increasing.

In 2023, children were not immediately released from Woodlands on 60 occasions, compared to 49 in 2022 and 39 in 2021.

Woodlands looks after children aged between 10 and 17 who have been accused of crimes.

Yesterday, The Detail spoke to the mother of 18-year-old Sophie Rodgers, who has had lengthy spells in Woodlands and Hydebank Wood jail in Belfast, partly because the Northern Health and Social Care Trust could not find her a place in a care home.

Eamonn McNally, a solicitor at the Children's Law Centre who represented Sophie, said the teenager spent three months in Woodlands in 2023 after she was charged with criminal damage and assault.

She was immediately granted bail but had to stay in Woodlands for three months until social services found her suitable accommodation.

Mr McNally said staff at Woodlands referred Sophie’s case to the centre.

“Woodlands were incredibly concerned about her being in there, just because of the rest of the population,” he said.

He said although the centre “did their best for her”... (social services) failed to get her out, keep her out, and support her”.

He added: “She essentially sat in Woodlands for over three months, while a whole argument was going on with (social services) about their responsibility to her.”

A spokeswoman for the Northern Trust said: “The Trust makes every effort to provide suitable accommodation for any young person in our care.”

“Often these cases are complex,” she said.

“We remain committed to supporting the care and wellbeing of every young person in our care and we will continue to offer our support to service users and their families.”

Lack of suitable accommodation

Social services have a legal duty to secure accommodation and a bail address for children leaving detention.

However, Mr McNally said accommodation does not have to be found within a set period.

“This often causes complications, because there really is a lack of appropriate provision for bail accommodation for young people,” he said.

Mr McNally said the lack of accommodation has meant that social services have sometimes placed children in hotels, hostels, or bed and breakfasts - accommodation which he said was unsuitable.

“The truth of the matter is, the (current) options are so limited,” he said.

“Everybody is looking at the same small pool of accommodation, there needs to be an increase.”

Chris Quinn, the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People, said he was concerned that children were being held in Woodlands longer than necessary.

“Despite improvements in the Juvenile Justice Centre (JJC) and collaborative efforts across departments and the community, I must stress that custody should be a last resort for children,” he said.

“It is concerning that children are being housed in Woodlands JJC due to a lack of alternative options, which only highlights the importance of addressing this issue to uphold children's rights.”

A spokesman for the Department of Justice (DoJ) said the Youth Justice Agency works with children on bail, aged 10 to 17, who are at risk of being sent to Woodlands.

He said the agency draws up an intervention programme for children, which must be approved by a court, aimed at keeping them out of the juvenile justice centre.

The spokesman said it is difficult to find accommodation for some children who have been bailed or released from Woodlands.

“Those young people who are remanded and/or sentenced often present with extremely complex needs and risks and this makes it much more challenging for partner agencies to place young people back in the community,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it is working with other departments to ensure “that there is sufficient accommodation available to meet the needs of all children in care, including those who are in contact with the juvenile justice system and are subject to bail conditions”.

She added: “The growth in the population of looked after children and the complexity of need within that population is putting pressure on placements across all (health and social care) trust areas”.

How are children detained in the Republic?

Other jurisdictions face similar problems around the detention of children.

Children in the Republic of Ireland who have been accused of a crime are sent to a single juvenile detention centre - Oberstown Children Detention Campus, in Lusk, Co Dublin.

Saoirse Brady of the Irish Penal Reform Trust charity said detention can be a traumatic experience for children.

“It is important to move children out of detention as quickly as possible,” she said.

The number of children who are forced to remain in the centre due to a lack of suitable bail accommodation has dropped from around 19% in 2021 to 8% in 2023, according to figures from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

However, Ms Brady said this was partly because Oberstown does not have many spare places - a maximum capacity of 40 for boys and six for girls.

According to the most recent inspection in June 2024, 38 boys were detained at the centre.

Woodlands has a maximum of 36 places but in 2023/24 the total average daily population was 10.

Ms Brady said an Irish government-funded supervision scheme, operated by the charity Extern, has meant that more children can leave Oberstown as soon as they are granted bail.

Under the scheme, a child on bail can get support from therapists, family support workers, and addiction experts.

She said the scheme had helped children including John*, a 15-year-old with drug issues who was facing multiple charges including theft and assault.

Thanks to additional support, John got help for his drug issues and returned to school.

“Very often people who enter the bail supervision scheme may have a substance misuse issue, have a high rate of offending, and will have fallen out of school,” she said.

“And the scheme provides a really intensive programme to try and get that person back into education, where they work on the underlying factors and the root causes of the offending.”

Scotland's child detention system

In Scotland, the age of criminal responsibility is 12.

Since September 2024, all children accused or convicted of crimes are housed in secure children’s homes, rather than young offenders’ institutions.

Fiona Dyer, director of the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), said the homes are part of the care system, rather than the criminal justice system.

“Children can all be sitting in the lounge together,” she said.

“There are shared meal times. They will be educated. They'll be having visits from family and friends. They could be doing activities with staff.

“There's access to health professionals, psychologists, general health, dentists, they would all come into (the) secure care centre when required.”

Northern Ireland has one secure children’s home, Lakewood Regional Secure Care Centre in Bangor, Co Down, which is close to Woodlands.

The Department of Justice held a public consultation in 2021 on merging the two centres.

However, the proposal was scrapped in 2022.