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Boy 15, found hanged at Lancaster Farms Young Offenders Institute

@narchist | 30.11.2007 15:12 | Social Struggles

Boy 15, found hanged at
Lancaster Farms Young Offenders Institute!

Inquiry as boy, 15, found hanged
Lancaster Farms Young Offenders Institute
Liam McManus had not been identified as being at risk
An investigation has been opened into the death of a 15-year-old boy from St Helens who was found hanged in his cell at a youth offenders institute.



The Prison Reform Trust said the boy's death raises questions about the use of custody for children.

He served half of a six week sentence for breaching a supervision order


The teenager, who died on Thursday, was the 30th child to die in custody in England and Wales since 1990.

Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, an organisation which helps families of youngsters who die in custody, said: "It is absolutely desperate. It is deeply shocking that a 15-year-old boy felt so utterly desperate he was found hanged in his cell while in the care of the prison service."

It is believed the teenager was given a single cell to live in because he had not been identified as at risk of self harm.

Ms Coles added: "It raises very fundamental questions about the fact that this country imprisons more children than any other industrial demographic country in the world.

"My desperation with this case is that deaths like this happen too frequently."

@narchist

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joined up thinking

30.11.2007 18:44

if he hadnt of broken the law he woudnt have been there would he

kids like him break the law and the dont like it when their locked up well they have to learn sometimes you cant do everythig you want

shame he killed himself but then thats probably 1 less criminal on the streets in the future shame to think of it that way

watcher


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Do not feed and respond to posts like "watcher" above, Please remove !

30.11.2007 19:25

watcher you ain't worth the energy in responding!

@narchist


Bitter Crop

30.11.2007 21:25

Bitter Crop



Any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved with mankind.


John Donne





We reap a bitter crop.

This one young man escaped his hell

And now he’s tolling like a bell

In his Risley prison cell

And sometime soon he’ll drop –

And so we reap a bitter crop.



His short sharp life was shocked

At brutish bastard British jails

Where boots come in and one fist flails

Before another. Would they never stop?

No. We reap a bitter crop.



What? Not 'on safari'? Not

'White-water-rafting in North Wales'?

'The Caribbean, surely, holiday camps…'

And why not?

Or is it better then to rot

On remand in the Risley jail

Where the boots come in and the fists all flail

And the bastards never stop?

And we reap a bitter crop.



Then gather in the season's haul.

And take him down from the jail cell wall

The tattered cord of noose and all

And watch his limbs and lifeblood flop.

And reap the bitter crop.



In teenage years he never knew

The wasted hand that this crop grew

Nor yet those youth of future years

Who’d fight that hand with more than tears.



For now the state repairs for his inspection.

Young blood’s its great objection?

No, not one single drop.

And so we reap the bitter crop.



Lonely, cold in his prison cell,

Young man tolling like a bell,

Sounding out the morning knell.



Don’t ask for whom it tolls.




A K

A K


intruder upon your world

01.12.2007 04:36

Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931

Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world ...

And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all ...

And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.

the wrong-doer


Jails are for mantaining inequality

03.12.2007 19:42

...and for that the UK has the highest number of people in jail than the rest of Europena countries...because the gap betwen the rich and poor is wider. Even the children! Wish jails were used to lock up those who stole the land from us, and forced us to work from them.

digger


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