Juvenile Bureau

EDM number 709 in 1990-91, proposed by Harry Cohen on 16/04/1991.

That this House congratulates Channel 4 for showing an update of the Juvenile Liaison programme, banned 15 years ago, which showed the practice of police forces which included the bullying and intimidating of children, often unnecessarily, for petty, childish offences which any decent teacher should be able to deal with, for meting out excessive punishment and threat of punishment which frequently overstepped the mark by becoming a form of child abuse; notes that children from very poor backgrounds were invariably targetted for the authoritarian treatment and that little or no assessment was made of whether a child was retarded; notes that despite the name change to Juvenile Bureau there is no evidence available to the public that police practice has significantly changed; considers that it should not take another public scandal, made difficult because of police non-co-operation and subsequent censorship, before there is a proper inquiry into the police's treatment of children; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to set up such an inquiry which could consider the advice of people with expertise about children much wider than just the police.

This motion has been signed by a total of 16 MPs.