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• Rise in children in custody highlights government failure

Home office minister Hilary Benn admitted that visiting a secure juvenile establishment was the most depressing moment of his life, writes Clare Jerrom.

Benn, who has responsibility for prisons and probation, told Nacro's annual conference that the visit motivated him to say that more has to be done to improve conitions in these settings.

"What we have done in the past is not acceptable, and what we must do in the future must be better" said Benn, who has taken ministerial responsibility for children and young people in the three weeks following John Denham's resignation.

The number of juveniles in custody has started to decline, Benn said welcoming the shift. Putting people into custody is not an article of government policy, he insisted, but protecting the public is, he said.

The biggest gap, he added, is what support is available for people in the community after prison, and it is important to get that right.

But there is now a greater interest at government level in prevention, he continued. "If we can intervene with support at an earlier stage before problems become too difficult to manage, I think it is a challenge worth rising to," Benn said, adding that the forthcoming green paper on children at risk will look at this.

It is also important to look at whether the structures are currently right at a local level for children at risk, he said. "I think the honest truth is that we haven't quite got the structures right," he said.