We need to talk about children in care

We need to talk about children in care


Recently I met two prisoners, Nick and Lee. Both are in their thirties and both are in prison because they were involved in armed robberies. In Nick’s case someone died in the course of the robbery and he is serving a 25 year sentence. Lee’s sentence is 15 months and he will be out soon. Both men have been in and out of prison for the last 20 years. As of last Friday, there were 84,500 prisoners in the UK, over 80,000 of them men. The reason I visited Nick and Lee is because they were in care as children and wanted to talk to me about what happened to them in care and how it led to them ending up in prison. The sad reality is that many thousands of prisoners who were in care as children have stories like Nick and Lee. Nick and Lee told me they want to stop other children who are in care now ending up in prison like them and following a life of crime.