To protect or punish? Children, counter-terrorism, and the criminal justice system
The recent report by the Child Rights International Network (‘CRIN’) details the threats to children’s rights presented at each stage of the UK’s counter-terrorism system. The report calls for a greater focus on children’s safeguarding, rehabilitation and best interests at each of these stages.
Details
The report identifies the following key concerns at each stage of the criminal process:
- (1) ‘Pre-criminal’ section: the process before a child is arrested for suspected terrorism
- Stop and search powers where the reason was suspicion of terrorism have been exercised against children in a manner that (i) rarely leads to actual convictions and (ii) has seen an over-representation of BAME children
- Prevent is drawing children into the criminal justice system unnecessarily at a young age with a broad scope that can treat immature internet searching as offending. This builds on a previous CRIN report detailing how Prevent infringes on children’s fundamental rights through e.g.
- a lack of transparency on how personal data is collected on children referred to Prevent.
- A disproportionate targeting of Muslim children, Asian children, and children with mental health problems.
- (2) ‘Pre-trial’ section: the process from arrest to trial
- Police officers are granted huge discretion as to how long children can be detained for pre-trial, with insufficient guidance on deciding between bail, local authority accommodation, and detention in the terrorism offences context.
- (3) ‘Trial’ section:
- Most terrorist offending is automatically dealt with in the Crown Court, but the range of terrorist offences has been expanded so widely that it now includes more preparatory, less serious behaviours (e.g. concerning internet activities). Such behaviours should not automatically warrant a Crown Court trial and its potentially harmful effects on a child.
- (4) ‘Sentencing’ section: after a child is convicted or pleads guilty
- The sentencing paradigm is highly punitive rather than rehabilitative. Imprisonment does not appear to be treated as a last resort.
Key recommendations from the report include:
- Enforcing compliance with the minimum UNCRC requirement that all decisions be made in the best interests of the child
- Filling the significant gap in publicly available data on children affected by counter-terrorism measures by producing sets of child-specific statistics on a quarterly basis.
- Ensuring the availability of traditional social services, mental health support, and education, rather than allowing Prevent to replace such services.
- Eliminating stop and search of children under terrorism laws.
- Dealing with almost all terrorist offences, short of the most serious, in the Youth Court
- Treating detention and imprisonment as a genuine last resort, particularly for children accused of internet offending.
- Looking to more rehabilitative examples of terrorist sentencing for children: in Tunisia, for example, the approach grants children a period of ‘guarded freedom’ to help them reintegrate following a terrorism charge with supervision from social workers and educational and vocational training.
Commentary
This report makes concerning reading in highlighting the impact of counter-terrorism on children’s rights. It is clear that a more nuanced approach is needed when such a significant portion of children caught by this legislation are engaged in more preparatory, online offences than the more serious violence typically feared when ‘terrorism’ is brought up. There needs be to be greater emphasis on safeguarding children rather than criminalisation.
The significant gaps in data and guidance on the treatment of children caught by this legislation concerningly suggests that this nuance has not yet been adequately considered by decision-makers. Tailored reforms guided by a child-rights approach are thus crucial at this stage.