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Children's rights campaigners in Scotland have backed calls for an end to juvenile detention in adult prisons.

It follows comments made last week by the Scottish chief inspector of prisons criticising the practice at Kilmarnock prison.

Dr Andrew McLellan said the prison "regularly finds itself forced to contain children" and even though none were present during the inspection, at one stage last year there were five being held at the same time.

"The normal practice is that they are held in the prison's health centre. There is no reason to believe that they are not treated properly: but there are very good reasons to believe that children should not be in prison," McLellan added.


Scottish children's commissioner Kathleen Marshall said she was concerned by the situation and was looking into the reasons why it was happening.

Susan Matheson, chief executive of the crime reduction charity Sacro, said detention in prison for even short periods of time could be damaging for children.

"The health centre must have adults in it as well and trying to keep children segregated and give them the support they need must be very difficult for prison staff. The early period in custody is very important and is when children are most likely to take their own life - they are very vulnerable," she added.

Scottish prison service figures show that during 2003 22 children aged under-16 were held in all forms of custody - including police cells, prisons or young offender institutions - 21 per cent of which were for 14 days or more.


A Scottish executive spokesperson said it was sometimes necessary to detain children in prison for short periods - "for a few hours or overnight" - while transport was arranged to permanent placements or if a Sheriff deemed they were a particular danger to themselves or the public.

"We want to avoid this happening and it is only used in exceptional circumstances. Every effort is made to keep [the stay] as short as possible and they are held in a segregated area," she added.