Kenneth Glad
Childhood usually means going to school and coming home to family. But for a forgotten group of young people, growing up happens entirely behind locked doors. Their reality looks nothing like a normal teenage life.
Some French juvenile detention centres keep youths locked in their rooms for up to 23 hours a day. Staffing issues cause this isolation.
That schedule leaves them with almost nothing to do. Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture has strongly criticised the lack of access to education.
The constant noise and lack of privacy wear the young detainees down. One boy told The Guardian about the endless shouting from the yard outside his window:
“We’re locked in our cells every day. Because of the way the buildings are laid out, the quiet corner is never really quiet.”
Hiding the sadness
Boredom is a constant threat to their mental health. One teenage boy explained to the publication how staring at the same walls blurs his vision: “I feel like being here is making me stupid. I forget things.”
Some youths stop caring entirely, while others draw just to escape the television.
Girls face unique struggles in these secure facilities. Out of six youth centres in France, only three accept female prisoners, The Guardian notes. The young women live in a separate wing but attend the same daily classes as the boys.
One girl described the deep fear of being watched in a place built for surveillance. “I sleep with all my clothes on to protect my privacy,” she said.
She refuses to talk to other inmates because gossip spreads fast after any argument. She simply buries her emotions to survive.
Sent to the hole
When rules are broken, children end up in the disciplinary unit. The British newspaper notes that these punishments usually last five days. If the offence involves violence, the stay extends to a full week.
By law, staff must provide activities to keep the youths occupied. That rarely happens. Instead, the rule is often ignored, plunging the young inmates into brutal and total isolation.
Detainees are heavily restricted. Guards ban them from having pens or any personal items. Driven by pure desperation, some children resort to writing on the cell walls with their own faeces.
These tight spaces lack fresh air, privacy, and basic control over the lights. The only escape is a tiny concrete yard for one mandatory hour outside each day.
One teenager landed back in confinement after he tried to saw through his cell bars:
“In the hole, you’re there, you stay there, that’s it. You lose it, you just have to talk to the wall. They call it the disciplinary unit, but you can’t come out of there normal.”
Life doesn’t go on outside the walls
Drug trafficking lands many of these teenagers behind bars. The paper notes that some youths invent glamorous stories about selling heroin to cope with their grim reality.
But getting out does not guarantee safety. One detainee explained how a 17-year-old friend was shot dead by men on scooters just days after his release.
The killers were collecting a massive drug debt. They even kidnapped the victim’s older brother over a stolen Telegram password to regain access to local clients.
The darkest moments happen when youths lose all hope. Staff place highly distressed children in emergency protection cells. They hand out special tear-proof clothing to prevent hanging when a child becomes suicidal.
Sp while suicides inside are rare, the true toll extends beyond the walls. The Guardian writes that one girl took her own life in a hospital just weeks after her release.
A medical team member shared their heartbreak over a boy named Jonathan, who killed himself mere days before his sentence ended. Staff never saw it coming despite their crisis training.
“It’s another death that will be forgotten,” the worker said.
Sources: The Guardian, Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture
