Throughout the world, many children are being locked up in police custody, boot camps, youth detention centres and other closed institutions. There is not much information on how these children, who are put behind bars for a variety of reasons, are being treated. Official data, made public by the government, hardly contain any information on violence against children behind bars. A huge improvement in the data collection all over the world is necessary to make an inventory of violence against children in detention.

Because of this, Defence for Children International has done research on the situation of minors in closed institutions in the Netherlands, Belgium, France England and Wales.

The study shows that, compared to the situation in the other countries, a lot of children are being locked up in the Netherlands. Another conclusion is that children in closed institutions run a high risk of becoming a victim of violence, for example violence by the police, institutional staff, other detainees or auto mutilation.  

The study uses twelve indicators of violence against children behind bars. Together with  the juvenile criminal justice indicators recently developed by Unicef and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the use of these indicators will contribute to the improvement of statistical research in these countries and opens up the possibility of comparative research. The availability of reliable and transparent data is necessary for the improvement of policy and legislation protecting children in detention against violence.