Institutional Sadism Against Boys in Britain: Gendered Vulnerability and Societal Indifference

This article explores a very underdiscussed and dark chapter of recent British history: the incarceration of teenage boys in militarised detention centres, which occurred from the 1950s through to the 1990s. Only boys were subjected to this system of militarised detention, where abuse was rife; some former inmates have described the detention centres as "sadistic, brutal concentration camps". The state policy in this regard was explicitly gender-based. The most egregious of these detention centres was Medomsley Detention Centre, where teenage boys were subjected to systematic torture and sexual violence. Both men and women participated in the abuse and were complicit in it.

In addition, the article examines how lessons have not been learned from this chapter of history, with boys in Britain's criminal justice system still not being protected from abuse, and still being subjected to gender-based forms of state violence. For example, boys are overwhelmingly targeted for strip-searching without adequate safeguards, and while Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) for girls have now been shut down, YOIs for boys are still open and have been made more punitive in nature, with pepper-spray now being rolled out across them, which is used on boys as young as 15. The Children's Commissioner for England has criticised the government for its treatment of boys in this regard, both in terms of strip-searching and pepper spray.