We want them to be responsible … So we take away all their responsibilities

We want them to have self-worth … So we destroy their self-worth.?

We want them to be responsible … So we take away all their responsibilities.?

We want them to be part of our community … So we isolate them from our community.’?

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These are the opening lines of a poem titled ‘Prisoners’ by Dennis Challeen, an American judge of the latter 1900s. Challeen is widely credited with creating the sentencing-to-community-service concept now applied within justice systems across the world.??

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Whilst lots of societal change and technological progress has taken place in the last 50 years, the British justice system has not moved on much, which makes Challeen’s words just as relevant here and now as they were in America in the 1970s. All the current data suggests that our approach to justice, and specifically to youth justice, is ineffective.??

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Sentence lengths for all types of offences have increased, with nearly half of children in custody currently on remand – awaiting sentencing in court, of which there are massive backlogs and delays. Over a third of young offenders released from custody in 2021-22 reoffended with the first three months of release. We know around 70% of children reoffend within about a year of leaving youth custody, and that within 10 years about 97% are in adult custody.??

Prison might prevent an individual from committing crime for the length of their custodial stay, but it makes it far more likely that they will become entrenched in a cycle of criminal behaviours for the rest of their lives. It simply isn’t working.??

At Oasis Restore, the first secure school in Britain, we recognise that if we want the outcomes to be different, then we need to approach criminal justice differently. In order for young people to leave a custodial setting and re-enter society ready and able to make a positive contribution, those young people need to have been treated as being worthy and capable of such.??

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Through our holistic child-first approach, via nurturing relationships, developing a community, and encouraging discovery, we will value and elevate each child’s voice, providing opportunities for them to practice agency and autonomy. We are committed to empowerment and ownership through providing choices and nurturing the responsibility of children in our care.??

At Restore, children will have multiple chances to explore who they are and who they want to be, through relationships with staff, peers, creative arts, and wider experiences to develop new skills and a sense of achievement. They will be encouraged in their aspirations and supported to take steps towards them, assuming positions of responsibility and having their skills and perseverance noticed and celebrated in a spirit of joyfulness and hope. Children will ‘own’ their personal narratives and actively contribute to their Restore experiences, as well as their developing journeys.??

Challeen’s poem ends:?

‘We want them to take control of their lives, own their problems … So we make them totally dependent on us.’?

At Oasis Restore, we strive to change this ending, to alter the narrative for children in custody:??

We want our children to take control of their lives, to own their problems … So we must support and empower them with the varied skills and self-belief to do so.??

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Oasis Restore are currently recruiting to multiple roles of our founding team. Please see here for further information and to apply: https://www.oasisrestore.org/join-us/vacancies??