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THE TREATMENT OF children in the Oberstown Children Detention Campus has been heavily criticised following an unannounced inspection of the facility.
At the centre of this is the extensive use of placing children in single separation – where they are isolated from their peers for a period of time.
The national guidelines for this practice from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs state that it is a measure that should be used, “for as short a period as possible, to give him/her an opportunity to regain self-control.”
It was found that this punishment was being used extensively – at an average rate of 6 times a day – and for punishments like smoking, swearing at their fellow detainees and being abusive towards staff.
Unannounced follow-up inspection
This information today comes from an unannounced follow-up inspection at the Oberstown facility from Hiqa, following a previous inspection in October 2014.
The independent watchdog states that the purpose of such monitoring inspections is to “safeguard vulnerable young people living in detentions schools”.
In the report it was found that progress had been made on fixing deficits that had been found in the previous inspection, but that work was still needed in the areas of single separation, care planning, mediation management and training.
It was said that young people at the facility were not always comprehensively assessed and that care plans in place were not consistently reviewed.
While the bad seemed to outweigh the good, the campus manager, the senior management team and the board involved in implementing change were commended for their leadership.
Response
In response to the report, the Irish Penal Reform Trust has described the situation with single separation as “extremely worrying”, with its executive director Deirdre Malone, saying, “Isolation from their peers is extremely damaging to children to young people, and must only be used after other forms of de-escalation have not worked.”
The Children’s Rights Alliance has also expressed concern at the action in the facility, saying that it, “should never be used as a form of punishment or discipline”.
Oberstown made headlines earlier this year when four teenagers managed to escape from the detention facility.
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So they’re basically being grounded, for smoking and abusive behaviour? God love them…
How are they getting smokes in anyways.Are mammy and daddy bringing them in or what??
Beat them with their pool cues and the lead of their PlayStation I say!
Yeah but why are they in detention ?
Because treating them like animals always work…
You need rules. In your work environment, you swear at a colleague, they’re not likely to smash a mug and stab you in the face with it. Hiqa have a very one sided view sometimes.
In order for these young people to find themselves locked up in a detention centre they need to have had several encounters with the law.
The little $c@mbags should be treated exactly what they are, $u@mbags.
If you had a list of reasons to answer your question Jiohn, would you then perhaps look and see if perhaps, just maybe, the methods used by the detention centre may be wrong and unhelpful?
Or do we simply accept your question as both the full answer and solution to the problem raised in the report, and just get on with it? Maybe we should not have any reports into any centres altogether?
Mick. If it looks, walks and quacks like a duck.
@ mick……while i totally agree in the past children/teenagers have been treated badly in our many institutions , all well documented. however, i dont think there are many if any…that are being treated like “animals” as you put it! for one thing young people of today will not take any sort of correction or advice given at any level…some might say this is a good thing…..but we now have a situation where law and order is totally gone and many especially our elderly are afraid to walk to the shops or live in their homes anymore…( agreed this is not all down to young people)…..we have totally lost the plot regarding how we discipline/parent/motivate/encourage our young to the point where it is a lost cause now…..as a result detention centres/all services/ schools/ communities dont know how to solve the situation
mike , what would you suggest is done? by the time they are eventually sent to such a centre every possible avenue has been explored …..how do you explain/assist/ encourage empathy to some one who thinks its ok to beat up an old person for their pension or break into some ones house for the 4/5th time ???
They’re no angels to be in there in the first place.
The article doesn’t make clear whether the “naughty step”, or whatever the equivalent, is used on average six times per day per person or six times per day in total. If it’s the former, then perhaps it may be a tad over zealous on the wardens behalf, if it’s the latter then I see no problem, other than some predictably sensationalist bleeding-heart liberal journalism. Quelle surprise!
I think very little of the report commending senior management & the board while being, in the whole, largely negative. In other words they’re pinning blame on the men and women at the coal-face who have to deal with these little blackguards face-to-face.
It’s easy to pull SOPs and change-processes out of your arsenal but they must be realistic and bear at least some relationship to conditions on the ground.
It’s based on a report, not journalism, and that doesn’t mean there are not genuine concerns to be addressed. these reports however, are often complete ass-covering BS by the writers, rather than the institutions.
The reports themselves are often problematic in that they give so little detailed information. Why is that? Ass-covering.
Ah diddums, do the little scrotes not like being put in the ‘naughty corner’??? Learn to follow the rules then…
Works both ways, if the rules are being broken by the system why would they bother, they’re already in the shite.
Seriously, this lot will simply be let out amongst us with no lessons learned. We pay a lot of money for “rehabilitation”, if it’s not happening it needs to be scrapped. A youth wing in a prison might work out better.
Or a few months signed off as an “intern” with the Army. I’m on a roll now.
Instead they should be sent on a 5 star all inclusive 3 week holiday to think about what they have done.
I spoke to a mother recently whose son has gone through the “system”. She told me and I quote “they made him worse than he was,they bowed to every demand he made from the best of gear to what ever he wanted, he came home to me only to demand the same and when he didn’t get it wrecked the house,what can I do,I can’t afford to give him everything”. Rehabilation my ass……………………
Maybe she should have taken some parenting classes.
If only it was that simple Niall.
It often is, Shane. bad parenting, bad upbringing, parental addictions, abuse, environment, poverty.
The majority of kids in there would be on the receiving end of some or all of that.
The home environment is the primary driver in what distinguishes balanced people from unbalanced ones.
@ niall o sullivan….maybe she was afraid to take some parenting classes!
Why is isolation a bad punishment for an unruly prisoner. Because that’s exactly what it is. This country and it’s people need to grow a pair. You can’t give out about the justice system on day and critise it for being to mean the next.
This ‘disturbing’ story, like all else in Irish media, is slanted heavily in favour of one side.
What is not being asked is, what circumstances surrounded each individual case, lighting up in a common room means the young person had on their person a means to cause a fire, swearing at staff must have had some reason behind it, but our journalists are not enquiring into this.
Why not and, would they, or the ‘Irish penal reform trust’ like these little thugs, sometimes not so ‘little’, living and disrupting beside them?
Exactly, I light up indoors I get slapped with a €3k fine… these scrotes get moved to their room.
Until we see for ourselves the insides of these places and how they are run day to day it is very hard to say whether or not it is “extremely” worrying.
Why not have documentaries on this exact place, with permission from the Minister to film?
What’s RTE for?
UK TV does this kind of thing all the time. BBC and Channel 4. At least people then know what the hell the places do, and look like and operate and are not dependent on select quotes from reports or quangos giving a soundbite in response to it.
These are not children they are young criminals and need to be treated as such
I being inside the new building. I’m not exaggerating when I say it like a hotel. Rest assured the little darling are well looked after.
Yes they are children and no amount of semantics from you is going to change that. These are former industrial schools. Oberstown holds anyone under 16 put on remand.
@ mickmc i have to agree with you…every possible way of trying to engage such young people is provided and even though their parents will not “parent ” them , the certainly make sure that every possible entitlement is available to them!
staff at all levels are monitored in all areas of contact and of course rightly so!
I worked in st pats niall and I can tell you it was hell on earth. I was abused threatened spat at and had food thrown at me. Then had to work with the individuals again And again. I worked there during the crash to support my family and let my self esteem come 2nd to food on the table. Thankfully I’m no longer in that environment and I feel sorry for the staff in oberstown. The level of violence and lack of humanity in these kids would scare you. for some reason the staff in these places are looked upon as if they created them. Their parents should be held responsible.
Snack boxes all round.
It’s so misleading when they use the “term” children as it conjures images of 6 year old little girls and boys being locked up in isolation. These are 17 year old criminals, not children, they deserve everything they get which is not very much at all, given the pathetic justice system we have.
I could understand this being disturbing if it was reporting the authority figures physically hitting them, they’re just sending them somewhere alone ffs, after the little runts have been acting up? What is WRONG with this country???????
they were sent there for their bad behaviour and from the sounds of it , they still haven’t learned their lesson yet . the time to catch them is in their teens before they get any older . you have a better chance of turning bad into good . boot camps is what they should be in .
My teacher used to put me in the “naught corner” quite a bit in primary school.I wonder if there is a claim in it?
Children.. you make them sound like little darlings…
Skkum of the earth they should be in chain gangs doing hard labour
Blame the parents, it’s always the parents fault!
Most of the time it actually is.
That said, good people can raise bad children. But it’s not very common.
What could have gone so wrong in their young lives to end up in a place like Oberstown ?
Could it be sex abuse ? Parents drug abuse ? Domestic abuse ? Alcohol abuse?
Ah shure throw away the key ..damaged going in and damaged going out .
Well a persons childhood defines the rest of their lives, it moulds them into the adults they will become. Parents are not strict enough these days. Like I dare not cross the line when I was growing up or id know I was in for it so it was not worth it. Amazingly my parents never stuck me once. Discipline is an art of its own. Putting a child in a detention centre like above is a bad move as they get to mingle and learn even worse habits from the other kids.
Parents these days give in too easily maybe due to the stresses of modern life, financial worries both parents working, so on so forth and the child suffers at the end of the day. Yea there are some cases where it’s not the parents fault where there is an actual behavioural disorder going on there and that is no ones fault but detention centres ain’t the answer for that either. As you say with detention centres they go in bad and come out worse.
So what is the answer?
There was an excellent discussion on this very topic a month or so ago..
Here is the very link
http://www.thejournal.ie/special-care-unit-hiqa-2302413-Aug2015/?utm_source=shortlink
Under staffing, under resourcing, insufficiency of professional support and skills, places the staff and the children into miserable circumstances.
go volunteer there of a weekend. don’t forget to wipe the spit off your face on the way out, if you get out.
should be send to military training. …that may set them straigh
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