'There are no good kids here' : girls' experiences of secure accommodation.

In 2010 two hundred and sixty children entered secure accommodation. Of
these, fifty-one percent were placed because they were on remand or
sentenced after being found guilty of committing a serious offence. The
other thirty-seven percent were placed by social services for their own
protection under a child welfare order. This means that secure
accommodation is used to simultaneously hold children sentenced for
punishment with those who are 'saved' from tragedy by welfare
professionals. This research explores girls' everyday experiences of secure
accommodation by centralising the view of young people as social actors
able to play a key role in defining their own experiences. It does so by
building on theories around discipline and confinement to consider secure
accommodation as an emotional space designed specifically to reform and
re-educate children. Taking secure accommodation as a unique social
space, this thesis employs the sociology of emotion to explore the social
architecture between the adults working as paid carers and the children for
whom they receive money to both care for and control. In order to
consider the nature of these relationships, this thesis explores the status of
'child' within the unit and the social Significance of childhood in the context
of a society which binds age with competency.