I'm in Here for a Reason Kids Behind Bars

This programme contains strong language

Each year, we lock up 2,000 school-age children.

Vinney Green locks up the youngest and the most troubled.

The kids no-one else can tame.

Some of them are very difficult, very challenging.

Fuck your mum!

Some of them are very dangerous.

Whether they're a danger to each other...

They're making threats to kill everybody,

threatening to stab the bitches that work at the unit.

..or a danger to themselves, and sent here for their own protection.

I happened to go into her bedroom this time

and found she'd put a ligature around her neck.

Are you scared?

They do need a rub of the head, just that motherly sort of touch.

That might surprise some people but they are only children.

These three boys started getting into serious trouble

when they were just nine.

Kalem faces the prospect of spending his teenage years behind bars.

I'm locked up for a reason.

He's got to get a grip on his anger.

This is Kieran's second time here but it's only for a few weeks.

Ain't he an annoying little kid?

He's misbehaving, he's got nothing to lose.

And Tali's just arrived for the first time.

This is where I first came into the unit in handcuffs.

They took me into that room and strip searched me.

He's got a long way to go to learn how to behave himself.

Vinney Green, is called a children's home

but for these boys, it feels like a prison.

In Britain, the law says that children can be held responsible for their crimes.

Whether locking them up to punish them or change them, this is where the youngest are sent.

I'm not going in there!

I want to go into my room. Now!

This is Vinney Green.

This is where you come in.

I've been here the longest out of everyone, really.

Kalem's been at Vinney Green for eight months.

He was sent here just after his 13th birthday.

You can't open the doors yourself, you have to have a member of staff with you all the time.

They open the door with keys.

This is where we get searched if you're staying with us.

You sit on that chair to see if you've got any metal stuck up your arse.

This is the way you go to school.

This is the lounge on the side.

That's a rapist, he's a prick.

The kind of crimes that young people are here for,

can be anything from carrying a bladed article,

a firearm, could be arson,

assault, violence against a person, sometimes robbery and burglary.

Could be sexual offences, could be even kidnap and murder.

Or they've committed multiple offences

where responses in the community haven't worked.

In the end, someone's gone, "enough is enough."

You have the welfare young people who are here for their own safety.

People are not here to be punished

but young people are here as a punishment or to keep them safe.

Can we have some sweets? Give me the bag.

-Munch those in your hand.

-How can I put them in my fucking mouth, you dickhead?

This is the astro.

I love the astro.

My lace is undone.

This is where, on Sundays and sometimes on Wednesdays or Saturdays

they play a football match.

Cameras keeping an eye on you, make sure you don't escape.

If there's a fight and they both got different stories,

they check the cameras to see what's right.

If I was to assault another YP,

the member of staff would have to press that flare.

All spare members of staff would come out here and stop the fight

and restrain us if possible.

Kieran is also 13, but he's been here before.

Being locked up once hasn't stopped him from getting into trouble again.

Fuck off.

He was bullied the last time he was at the unit,

so Kieran is sent straight to the block for girls and vulnerable boys.

I was laughing at him and he started bullying me.

You know what I used to call him?

Big, fat fucking bully, all the time.

"Shut the fuck up, you big, fat, fucking bully."

He's quickly adopted by Charlie, one of eight girls in the unit.

She's become his surrogate big sister.

Kieran's got an endearing character.

He's got a likeable way about him.

Quite young and...

..therefore can be quite irritating at times.

Winga, winga, winga, winga, oom...

'He's a cheeky chappy.'

-Ain't he annoying?

-You're being silly now.

Ain't he an annoying little kid?

He is only 13, that is very young to be away from your family

and be in an environment like this.

But Kieran's only going to be here for a short time,

so the unit have to decide what they can realistically achieve with him.

-Ah!

-'When a young person comes to the unit in the first place,

'we're looking at lots of different factors.'

Part of it is to do with how long someone's going to be here.

Sometimes people are here literally for a few days.

So when someone comes in, we assess them educationally ourselves,

we look at their literacy and numeracy needs.

Often, it's frustrating

because we don't know how long someone's going to be here.

Smile, you're on candid camera.

Shut the fuck up or I'll stab you in the neck.

They have more time with 14-year-old Tali, who's only just arrived.

'We've got a new young person, Tali.

'He's in for a few months with us.

'It's his first time in secure.'

This is where I first came in the unit,

in handcuffs and they took me into that room and they strip searched me.

The ceilings are all the way up there so you can't climb.

The walls are so far apart so you can't just jump on it and climb up.

That's the control room.

This is where the staff talk shit to each other and eat biscuits.

Tali spent much of his childhood moving around

and his disruptive behaviour hasn't been helped by smoking cannabis.

He's come to us without a great deal of school before.

He's quite excitable.

Three weeks in and Tali is finding it impossible to settle down.

As the kids move to lessons, he can't resist provoking one of them.

Every time Tali kicks off, he's taken back to his room until he calms down.

They're always around me, every second.

It makes me feel...

I don't know, it doesn't feel good.

Your door's locked, you can only go somewhere with the staff.

You can't go nowhere by yourself or nothing.

I'm not a guy that likes people around me 24/7.

I'm a guy that likes being free, so it's hard for me, isn't it?

It's Lyn's job at the unit to help the kids fit in

and she's trying to find a way to control Tali.

Her first step is to discover more about him.

Shut up!

-Can you take your hands out of your trousers please, Tali?

-Look, it's here. It's not...

Take your hands out of your trousers.

It won't drop off, honestly. Thank you. Goodness' sake.

What are you good at?

-Art.

-Art? What sort of art do you like?

-All sorts.

-All sorts of art.

OK. What subject do you find the most difficult?

-English.

-English. That's a really sensible answer.

Anything else you'd like to do in these one-to-one lessons we have?

-Just do some reading, writing.

-Biscuits, tea and biscuits.

That's a bit of luxury isn't it?

-Tea and biscuits.

-Tea and biscuits.

I'll write it down, it's not going to happen. but I'll write it down.

What's the point of writing it down?

Because you've requested it. That's good, well done.

He's quite flighty, shall we say.

He needs to work on his social skills.

He tends to wind the other young people up a bit.

But I think we can tame him.

Morning.

Right, get your arse out of bed.

Oi! Get yourself out of bed, now!

It's 7 o'clock in the morning

and all 24 kids have been locked up in their bedrooms for 10 hours.

For the next 14 hours, their every move will be monitored.

Right. OK.

There are over 90 staff,

enough to make sure they're supervising the children every moment of the day.

And twice a day, teachers, care staff and managers

meet to analyse the kids' behaviour and discuss the risks they pose.

Both times he's restrained, he's gone for the eyes.

I'd suggest you try and get in behind if anything does happen,

so he can't get his hands on you. Just be aware of that.

This attention to detail means they can keep tabs on the kids' progress.

-Kalem, then?

-Really good, he's on silver.

-He worked well this week.

He shook my hand, "I'm on silver." He put his hand out.

There are compulsory lessons for 6 hours, 51 weeks of the year.

They spend longer in school here than if they were in school outside.

Mostly, we regulate what they do.

That's it, good man. Well done. Good technique.

We try to give them lots of different activities,

so they don't get bored, but actually we tell them what to do.

But this all adds up.

It costs £4 million pounds every year, just to run the facilities.

Kalem's been here for 9 months.

Despite his ups and downs, he's trusted to learn skills in the vocational unit.

'Kalem's an interesting young man. Very likeable some days, very not likeable other days,

'Very mature some times, very immature other times.'

-What did he do?

-Stop sniffing it.

'Kalem is quite susceptible to negative behaviour.

'He gets drawn into it by his own free will.

'He could easily back out of it and he wouldn't lose any credibility.'

# Don't worry, be happy... #

'Definitely a child in there, screaming.

'and sometimes, you see him now and again.'

Aware of his violent past - Kalem did seriously injure somebody -

the staff are always on the look out for any sign of dangerous or volatile behaviour.

Once lessons are over, they can choose their activities.

Even then, there's a member of staff there,

but it's at this time when things can spiral out of control very quickly.

The care worker watching Kalem can't stop what started as a tiny push

escalating into a dangerous row.

She presses her emergency flare

and within 20 seconds, more staff arrive to stop the fight.

The culprits are physically restrained and taken to their rooms,

but this has now become a critical incident.

This is very serious. One of those on the head, it could kill you.

I mean, a pool ball at full force on the head, it could kill you.

And here they are, it's gone from being a bit of a...

Messing around to actually a really serious incident

and it's gone just like that. No real warning at all.

Absolutely flipped, just like that Kalem's got an anger issue.

That comes out clearly here. Very suddenly, he flips out, if you like.

You wouldn't want to be seeing incidents like this just before somebody was released.

That would be a real worry.

He's got quite a long time to go before he leaves from here.

One would hope that there's quite some improvement

and that we don't see incidents like this.

It's not what you want to see at all.

Kalem is locked in his room.

He receives a red card and loses all his privileges.

He's banned from all his favourite activities.

And he's not allowed to do vocational courses for 48 hours.

Car mechanics, plumbing and building.

It's going to slop everywhere!

The power to the TV and CD player in his bedroom is switched off too.

The unit is run on a strict system of rewards and sanctions.

The more points, the more privileges.

Oh, Kalem, man...

And Kalem will have to earn the right to these rewards all over again.

'You get points for going to school,

'you get points for doing as you're told to by the staff,

'you get points for cleaning your room, for attending all the meals.'

'As people earn more trust, more honesty,

'they get given a little bit more.'

When you're blue, all you get is a radio...

and you get £3.60 pocket money.

And when you're on silver, you get £4.50 pocket money

and a radio and a TV and a phone.

And when you're on gold, you get a radio, a plasma TV,

you get PlayStation 3, a takeaway and you get to watch movies.

INTERVIEWER: What are you on?

I'm on individual, cos I can't do a whole week of being good,

cos it's hard for me.

As far as possible, the staff try to persevere with the daily routine,

even when faced with persistently bad behaviour.

But Tali, who had a troubled history at school,

is finding it particularly hard, even after 5 weeks at the unit.

And small incidents easily escalate.

Alarm!

It takes 30 seconds from the moment the flare is pressed for 12 members of staff to arrive.

This time, no-one is hurt.

I don't touch you, I'll slap your face.

I ain't going!

All right, then.

Chill out for a bit. I'm going to talk to the teacher.

It's all fun. He's having a funny five minutes today.

'I think people are taking the line that they need

'to come down quickly and firmly so we get the right boundaries in place.

'But that at the same time, recognising he hasn't been given those boundaries before,

'This is the place for him to learn them.'

When I was little, I didn't have my Mum around or anything.

I was living with my Dad for a little while.

That's when it all started going wrong.

Cos I used to go on the streets and that.

I started mixing with the wrong people.

They was telling me to steal stuff and stuff like that that.

I was little, I didn't really know what was what then.

-INTERVIEWER: How about the first time you got caught?

-For graffitiing on the wall.

But I was a bit stupid, cos I writ my name.

I'm going to put this on my door.

It's me, with my hood up and something over my face.

Despite the incident, Tali's put back into class just 2 hours later.

Because he's being so difficult,

he's given some individual time with a teacher.

But even one-to-one classes are a struggle.

'He doesn't like to be challenged.'

He threatened to spit at me, grabbed a chair, chucked it,

not at me, it obviously wasn't supposed to be at me,

cos I was here and he chucked it over here.

I thought, "I don't know how far this is going to go, so I'll press the flare just in case."

What's gone wrong with you today, man?

'I wasn't actually scared.'

I sometimes press the flare before the moment where I might get scared.

You do start to learn which kids do need the time out.

You're not necessarily in trouble, but you need to be out of here, cos you're not going to cope.

He's back in his room again,

while the other kids carry on with their lessons.

I'm always optimistic. You have to be.

If you weren't, it would drag you down.

But realistic, it's a short time to try and turn someone's learned behaviour

over 12, 14 years around. So, tricky one.

'The vast bulk of young people are the product of where they came from.

'Some of the young people have been involved in gangs, or family was involved in crime.

'All of those things, they contribute towards what a young person is like, here and now.'

Urgh!

Kieran's not the first one in his family to be locked up.

His dad and his brother have both been inside.

'It's amazing the amount of kids whose dads have all been in prison. It's really common.

'And alcohol and drugs usually come into it, somewhere along the line.'

-Thanks, Carol.

-"Thanks, Carol." Nah!

'I don't think there's hardly any who have just been...

'wrong place wrong time, which is sad cos they're just a product

of circumstances, as possibly their parents are before.'

I finished a box today for my brother.

It's for making rollies.

Special rollies.

Kieran was very young when he started getting into trouble,

like most kids at Vinney Green.

I started being naughty when I was about nine.

Got caught trying to nick a push bike from outside Asdas.

Oh, and a burglary. I went in there when someone was in the house,

put my hand through the letterbox, got into the house,

drove to another house, another burglary.

PS3, XBox 360, two laptops, a couple of iPods, a few phones...

HE WHISTLES

Just being a thief, really.

But his parents are trying hard to keep him on the straight and narrow.

My mum and dad don't agree with what I do. They think it's wrong.

They try their hardest to keep me out of trouble and stuff.

Kieran will be returning to his family soon.

But Tali has a while to go.

He's been here for six weeks and still struggles with the discipline.

He hasn't managed to control his behaviour and the 200 CCTV cameras

are there to record his every wrong move.

One bit of food thrown at Tali is enough to set him off again.

As Tali's behaviour continues to deteriorate,

his collection of red cards continues to grow.

You've got Tali in a fight with another young person,

Tali grabbing a young person and giving them a kick,

Tali kicking a member of staff,

Tali throwing toast at a member of staff.

So lots of different triggers.

It's not one young person, it's not one member of staff,

He's falling out with everyone at the moment.

What it will mean is no power on in your room at night,

so you can't listen to your music or watch TV.

And that will lead to frustration with him in itself,

so we need to get a grip on this and do something about it quickly.

There is one place where there are no cameras monitoring them - the young people's bedrooms.

And for Kalem, his room is his pride and joy.

But it's not completely private.

Every day, five bedrooms are randomly searched

while the children are down the corridor at school.

Matches, tips...

The staff are checking for items known as contraband that have been smuggled in...

What's that? That shouldn't be here.

..or weapons hidden by the children.

-Bits of plastic.

-She's like the sniffer dog!

See, that can be used as a weapon.

There's a little...

It's a little shank made of wood. We find them on room searches.

It shows you the type of people we're dealing with and the things they come out with.

But sometimes it gets a bit more dangerous than that

in as much as we get a bit of marble inside a sock

and they would try and hit somebody over the head with that.

Another toothbrush, sharpened up at the point.

You can make another shank with the toilet brush,

just by rubbing it on the stone. Very industrious young people!

It's been a few weeks since any violent outburst from Kalem.

The Vinney Green method is to involve the kids

in activities as much as they can, even if they carry a risk.

I'm fine, man, come on!

So because his behaviour has improved, and despite his history of violence,

Kalem is allowed back into the most dangerous place in the unit -

the DT suite.

I know what I'm doing, man, just fuck off!

I'm doing a fucking wonky white line!

OK, do you want to take the guard off, then?

No, I don't want to. Leave it on, man, what a fucking dickhead.

Move out my way.

It's got to be low.

I know what I'm fucking doing!

-It has to be low, Kalem.

-I know what I'm doing, man.

It has to be low. It has to be low.

I can't see what I'm doing now.

Well, crouch down a bit, then. Put the goggles on.

It has to be low.

All right, well go on then, move then.

Fuck off, then. The goggles are on, man!

Don't leave it that high.

Kalem... Stop!

'Kalem sometimes feels he's not being listened to.

'He gets frustrated very quickly, and when he gets frustrated,

'he loses it momentarily.'

What the fuck is sandpaper for?

To sand things down?

It doesn't pay to be confrontational with him,

it just winds the whole situation up.

OK, goggles down here...

You have to wear goggles.

'That could have continued but he did settle down quite quickly afterwards.'

I mean, look...

What, man?

Since I got here, I made this. A crib for my niece, who I adore.

I made a clock for my mum, with flowers on.

'He's very family-orientated, he misses them a lot.'

He's still a child, he's very young and beyond the veneer,

I think he's actually quite vulnerable and needs to feel safe

and wants to be wanted.

Come on, Brazil!

Yeah!

Today we're going to see a member of staff.

Can you keep a secret?

Depends what it is.

Where's that come from?

From John.

-Does he know?

-No.

-That's a bit rough.

It's not. Shhh. Shut up, man.

Well, it'll have to go back.

-He had four of them!

-Yeah, but he'll want it back.

I trusted you to keep a secret and now you're a fucking grass.

They search the fucking room and they take the piss, look.

The clothes won't even dry like that.

Have you ever seen such a tidy room in all your life?

I've seen it fucking tidier,

they went and fucking searched my room and fucked it up.

All my jumpers...

You put those there.

I didn't put them like they were, I put them like this.

I know how to keep things.

When we do room searches,

we find very interesting things in Kalem's room.

He does it to entertain himself, to be honest.

He showed me where it was earlier but he had to be back in assembly,

so it's better to get him back off to his lesson

and come and remove it later

than let him kick off and get all cross before his lesson.

He just wants it to decorate his room and...

that's pretty normal behaviour, isn't it?

But he's stolen it, rather than asking for it,

so that's not normal behaviour, so it'll go back.

He won't be happy with me later. He'll call me a snitch.

Which I am.

Kalem can't put a foot wrong without every member of staff knowing about it.

Each week, the senior managers discuss the behaviour of every child with the Head of the Unit.

And Kalem has gone from one of the highest reward levels to the lowest.

Tricky week, I would say.

He hasn't had a great week. There's issues around him not being able to get off of blue.

Ten weeks he's been on blue now.

He was on gold at one point.

-He'd made gold.

-Yes, he did.

Whether we like it or not, he takes things. He takes people's radios, he's tried to snatch keys.

He took a hard drive out of the computer.

He's trying to steal things from the unit.

So it's difficult to go, "OK, we'll try and plan around it."

He just needs to stop, doesn't he?

Kalem is not the only child who is stealing things

and hiding them in his bedroom.

As rooms are checked daily, the staff are becoming concerned

that they're finding home-made weapons with more frequency.

They are quite a difficult group the lads on phase 1.

They're the ones who seem to be collecting things now.

Pens, pencils, CDs. Anything like that. They are dangerous items.

You never know what they are up to, and it's little things like this that come to light.

It's just how we deal with it really.

The staff increase the number of room searches.

This was found out of DT. It's a shank...well, not a shank,

a bit of wood to smack someone on the head.

And now they've even found a threatening letter.

A letter was intercepted in phase 2, which is the girls' unit.

Basically stating a young person was going to stab another young person.

It's quite a frightening thing really. So we're on a bit of a high state at the moment.

When graffiti appears all over the place, this is the final straw.

BANGING AND SLAMMING OF DOORS

Vinney Green is sent into lock-down.

A lock down, what it means is for us to control the unit and the young people in the unit.

What we do is we put the young people in their bedrooms and bring them out one at a time

for a search while other people search their bedrooms.

It's not taken lightly. I mean, once or twice a year.

-Why are you searching me?

-We are searching you and the rooms.

-Why?

Cos of all the graffiti going on, as soon as we get it done, the sooner everyone's out.

-Hello, obviously you know why you're here?

-No I don't.

-Everyone's having a search, there's been a lockdown in the unit.

-What's gone missing?

There's missing items. I can't disclose that,

so unfortunately we have to check everyone, as you know.

Take your top off, put the vest on.

'We give them a dressing gown to put on and then they take off all their clothes.'

'Then they have to show us their sides to show that they are not wearing anything else.

If I can check your sides.

'So in effect it is a full strip search without anything being shown.'

Grab a seat on the boss chair.

'It's basically a massive human metal detector.

It can detect, say there was a lighter and it was put somewhere we couldn't physically search,

we'd be able to check and let you know they've got something there.

A lot of pens.

But we're taking all felt tip pens anyway.

He had a big bagful, that was full.

-How long will this take?

-I don't know, mate.

The quicker people are in getting searched, the quicker we'll be able to sort it out.

OK. Cheers, thank you.

We've got to have a strip search and they search our rooms and basically they mess our room up.

It just takes the piss.

Can you come down the corridor please?

-It can't be nice to watch people go through your stuff like this.

-It's fucking not.

Kalem's pens are taken away, but no weapons are found.

We found a bit of long string which looks like it's from pyjama bottoms.

But we don't have pyjama bottoms here. So that was removed.

This is what we would call contraband.

It wouldn't be allowed because it could be made for a ligature,

so we remove stuff like that.

And this was removed as well. A badge has got a pin on it.

And a cigarette, a paper clip,

and then the pens.

'They thought it was silly cos it was only pens but they realised that the graffiti has to stop.

'We clamped down, they realised if they do it again the same thing would happen.'

Tali's been at Vinney Green for ten weeks now, and has six more to go.

He's now regularly being aggressive to the staff.

Incidents vary tremendously.

Somebody could be spat at, shoved, kicked, punched in the ribs,

full-on smack in the face.

There is of course that measure of risk which goes with working with these young people.

The staff have to act quickly to contain and restrain him.

-What did you do that for?

-She gave me a red card.

You did some good filming, then you go and kick the door in. There was no need...

I don't give a fuck, man.

Tali came along and kicked the classroom door in,

As Lyn was trying to take him away cos I had a class in here cooking,

he reached through and slapped me across the face.

The weekly meeting of the senior staff monitors Tali's progress.

He was risk assessed out of cooking because he slapped Corrine.

Even that he didn't really understand why.

Georgina pulled off all the incidents that had happened.

-23 was it?

-It was a lot wasn't it. In the twenties.

And there's just not that recognition between action and consequence.

It doesn't matter how consistent it is. It's a bit of what you just said, cos he said,

"I just kicked her, that's all."

It didn't link that it's totally unacceptable and that's why this happened.

Tali is given another chance.

Despite slapping Corrine, the cookery teacher.

I ain't doing washing up.

You can fuck yourself.

You lazy bitch.

It's not very often that when he's verbally abusive that he means it too much.

That sounds really odd.

But it happens so often, it's almost like he can't help himself.

He's got little twitches and things that he does.

Sometimes it's part of that but we have to be aware that

other people see him swearing so he does need to be picked up on.

Partly to remind him and show other young people he's been dealt with fairly.

He's slightly aggressive but never normally gets too aggressive.

It's better for him to be in here than stuck somewhere else, not able to come into the lesson.

His work was actually really good but it's a challenge to

keep young people in the classroom and doing their work.

If he realises what he's done is wrong he'll come and apologise.

But he might not understand why I thought his behaviour was unacceptable.

'In some young people this will be their first opportunity to be with adults who will not abuse them.

'Whether it be through abusive language or how they're dealt with, or physically.

'So part of it is saying you can live with other people including adults and you will be treated OK.

'The punishment for the young person is that they've lost their freedom and their liberty.

'So apart from that we should treat them with respect, and dignity and as children.'

Building trust has taken a lot of time for Kalem.

'He's been here for so long that he realises that people do care.

'We do listen to him. Slowly but surely he's opening up to people and letting himself be a kid,

'as opposed to this little tough man that he thinks he is,

'but he's quite clearly not.

'He's getting more confident in us as well. We're not going to let him down.'

-Are you cheating?

-No, course not.

As if you would!

Me? No!

It's part of Lizzy's job to give Kalem plenty of one-to-one attention.

Oh! How can you know?

Seriously, can you see them in my glasses?

-When was the last time you had a visit?

-Saturday.

Who came?

Mum and Dad.

-Together?

-My nan come and my auntie...but I rung her yesterday and she's in Spain.

-Nice.

-Living the fucking life.

'There's so much going on there.'

And they... Yeah, he misses his mum - and dad as well.

Now and again he'll mention them,

but he doesn't talk about them very much or about his feelings about them.

He doesn't have anyone to tuck him in or tell him they love him or read bedtime stories.

But then he did what he did.

Uno.

HE WHOOPS AND POPS

After nearly 4 weeks, Kieran is getting ready to leave.

He's been in for such a short space of time, it's been hard for the staff to make an impact on him.

-Don't go in there, OK?

-SLAMS AND BANGS

You're just being silly, you are.

And now he's got what the staff call gate fever.

It happens to kids who are about to leave.

So he is even more difficult to control than usual.

Kieran is a typical person that knows he's going.

Because he's play-acting up. He's misbehaving.

He's got nothing to lose. So why shouldn't he? SHOUTING

And that's why he's being like he is today.

But we still need to put boundaries in place.

HE SCREAMS AND LAUGHS

You're adorable at the same time, aren't you?

-Bitch.

-Minx.

Oi! Stop showing off to the camera.

'Gate fever - it's a host of emotions, excitement, fear.

'It's pretty common for them to feel unsettled.

'Why wouldn't they? They're children.'

SHOUTING

So, yeah, that's why he's like that.

It's mainly young people that know they're definitely going.

Take your glasses off, please.

-He's so cute.

-Can you turn my power back on please?

-No.

-Please.

-No. Your power is not going back on.

-Please.

-No.

-You will listen...

-Fucking wanker!

-Yeah, whatever, Trevor.

Kieran might be on the way out...

But Kalem is hoping to find out for sure today how much longer he'll have to be at Vinney Green.

My community chest thing - my get out of jail free card.

Go to take it, haven't you? Got to try.

'Every young person that comes in here are not the same, they have their own qualities.

'They can be funny, they can be thoughtful,

'and compassionate as well.

'There are some young people that you feel,

'if only they'd been given a chance.'

But after nine months, Kalem is stuck in limbo.

He still doesn't know the length of time he'll be locked up.

Just a bit pissed off.

I always look at the floor.

Nothing at else to look at, is there?

It takes another two weeks for Kalem to get a clear answer about his future.

His words were, "I'll get out just before my 16th birthday. Mad, isn't it?"

So he now knows, after such a long time,

I've only got two years left to go,

so he's lightened, he doesn't have to worry about it any more.

As they get more and more relaxed,

they'll start walking around in a T-shirt as opposed to a vest, a T-shirt,

a jacket and a hoodie, with the hood up.

As they become more relaxed, they do literally shed their layers.

Checkmate.

Your move.

'A lot of the young people who come here have mental health difficulties

'or have themselves very traumatic backgrounds and lots of problems

'that come with that, and I'm very often asked to assess them,

'looking at the kinds of reasons why they offended

'and ways they can manage those feelings and behaviours in the future.'

Hello, I gather you're having a bit of a morning.

Don't kick the door, Tali. Come on.

-Shut the fuck up!

-Come on.

-All right, open the door!

-No... No, let's go.

No...

Why?

Let go, please.

Let go.

Let go.

No, come on.

Bastard!

Come on.

Tali, come on.

Pussy!

The staff are determined to get to the bottom of Tali's bad behaviour,

so Janet, the unit's psychologist, tackles him.

"People only notice my bad behaviour."

Sometimes.

"I have too much energy to sit still for long."

THEY CHUCKLE

-What do you think?

-Definitely.

Yeah? "I break rules."

Definitely.

SHE CHUCKLES

Very honest again.

"I'm touchy or easily annoyed."

-Temper?

-You know, you just get a bit...

Yeah, that's when I'm not hyper. When I have coffee I tend to.

Do you? So is Starburst a safer option than coffee?

-No, Starburst is even worse!

-Is it indeed?

"I have urges to do really bad things".

When you say bad things, what do you mean? Bang people in the face?

-Could be... Could be anything.

-Stab someone?

-Could be...

-If they annoy me.

Could be wrecking the classroom, could be anything, really.

What, just do it for no reason?

-Yeah. When you just feel like you have to do it?

-No, not at all.

-No? Never?

-Never.

Do you know what? That was that.

Do you want to do another one?

-No, no.

-Sure?

-Yeah.

It's slightly different.

-I'll take your keys.

-That wouldn't be a good thing to do.

-Why not?

Because then everybody will be in deep trouble.

I'll get my wrists slapped

for letting you have my keys.

You will get 48-hour red-carded because of a breach of security

-and we'll all be in the...

-I don't give a fuck, though.

I know! But we'll all be in the doo-dah.

How will I breach security by touching your keys?

Because you shouldn't have them,

and because it means you can get out through the door, which you know.

Cheers, me dear.

He's sat up there.

Where would you like this young man?

Kalem is much more settled now he knows how long he's going to be here

and is slowly working his way back up the rewards scheme.

But the staff are concerned about something they have found in his room.

Deputy Manager Callum brings him in for questioning.

There's a couple of things I want to talk to you, first of all this,

which was found in one of your shoes in your room.

-My shoe?

-In one of your shoes, believe it or not.

-Seriously?

-Seriously.

Oh! And that's why we do searches -

when you get things like that hidden in shoes.

It's obviously been broken off something.

Never seen it before.

-You've never, ever seen it before?

-Never seen it before.

-Someone broke into your room and put that in your shoe?

-Never seen it before.

-So you can't tell me where it came from?

-No.

It was found in your shoe, in your room.

It's only a little piece of metal, but if you were attacked with that, slashed across the face

you could do someone some quite big damage.

They're not allowed anything metal in their rooms.

-A screw.

-A screw.

Anything that can be seen as a weapon, especially you, want to be avoiding.

Yeah, I used this to put in my CD player for my aerial, I've had that for months.

-You can't be walking around with screws like that.

-I'm not walking around with it.

-Can you see it could be seen as an offensive weapon?

-Let me see it.

I've never seen it before, mind.

Yeah(!)

I haven't!

Your offence, you will be staying well away from offensive weapons.

That's not mine, is it?

Well, it was found in your room, whether it's yours or not.

-I don't know where it came from.

-Yeah, OK.

Finished?

That's it. Happy days. You go and have a break.

He's got a nice side, but unfortunately there's a side

that got him in here in the first place, extremely violent.

So you never let your guard down. you've always got to bear in mind what they are in for, etc.

Because they're very fickle. One day they might be best friends and really cheery and that,

and the next day they can really flip, they might have had a phone call from home,

anything can set them off. Excuse me a sec.

Callum.

Two hours later, and they've got to the bottom of the incident.

Further investigation, we find out that this metal part here

is part of the strengthening of the pair of shoes that he had, sort of built into the sole.

So... No offensive weapon, and he didn't know it was in there.

There weren't any weapons in his room.

Kalem was telling the truth.

He didn't get excited, he didn't get upset,

he had a rational conversation about it,

and it looks like he's moving on, because when he first came in,

he would have been all over the shop.

They're ready for him.

-All bagged up?

-Yeah.

-What?

-You all right there?

No, I told you to hold it.

Kieran's leaving Vinney Green today.

He's been here for just four weeks.

Come on, be a gentlemen.

I would if you were a lady.

HIGH PITCHED: Be a gentleman.

Come on, Craig.

'When I get out I'm going to college and I'm doing plumbing,

'bricklaying and mechanics.'

Hopefully I'll get something out of that, then get a job when I'm 16 -

go to college full-time and just get an apprenticeship.

When you lose your freedom, that's massive in itself -

but along with that comes routine, stability,

three cooked meals a day.

They have a safeness.

When they leave here, it's unpredictable -

and that must be really scary for them.

What you want for any young person is they actually achieve SOMETHING.

We know, for some young people, they're not here long enough.

Due to the circumstances they might be going back to, we're not going to necessarily change them.

But it is about them having a level of positive experience.

So, this was Kieran's room.

Goodbye, Kieran.

And we just wait for the next person to come in and start all over again.

Ah, look - the new boy's here. They look like pikeys.

Pussies!

But Tali's stay here will be much longer -

and, after 3 months, he's not the new boy any more.

He's finally settling down.

When we get new people in, it's almost...

like they've, sort of,

got to re-establish their hierarchy.

-Kick the window.

-Fucking spastics, man.

I don't think it's very cool for them to be nice about a new young person, so they won't.

There have been no major incidents for a couple of weeks now, and he has become calmer.

It can be up and down with Tali.

He can be very, very difficult if he's not in the right mood, but...

he's an interesting kid, definitely. I do like him.

I was going to put it on my wall, cos....

I'm not Christian, but I believe in all that.

I believe in God and stuff. My dad's Christian, innit?

Cos when his dad died, he cut off his dreads and became a Christian.

So...

That's what I believe in, innit?

When I first came,

my head was messed up cos I was smoking a lot of weed, innit? So...

My brain's repaired now. I feel, like, better.

I don't feel off the rails.

It ain't this place that's changed me - it's me that's changed myself.

Success is quite difficult to measure,

cos you could argue that someone that's committed violent crime

who now no longer commits violent crime but, perhaps, other crime -

that actually could be seen as a result.

Because crime against a person, we would suggest, is much worse than crime against possessions.

But there are so many different criteria for saying what is a success.

This one might sound stupid - bigger windows for our doors.

At the monthly meeting between the head of the unit and the kids,

Kalem has been elected as a spokesperson.

What else have you got on there?

More toiletries, an exercise ball in every room,

much more outdoor activities.

Cleaning competitions.

He's moved on, in terms of anger, frustration.

He couldn't express himself without absolutely exploding.

He will ask his own questions and he will let people ask him questions.

That is a big, big step - slow, but substantial.

-Lots of people have mentioned the phones.

-They should be on all night.

If I was watching a film, I'd ring my mum and say, "Look, Mum, this film is on ITV1.

-"The one you've been wanting to watch for a long time."

-Right.

She could turn over and watch ITV1, then I could be on the phone watching the same film as her.

Or I could ring up my mum and say, "Goodnight, Mum, I love you."

Poker competitions...

Kalem has been at Vinney Green for just over a year now,

and he's progressed up the reward system.

It's Saturday afternoon, and he's back in the pool room.

There's a fight going on in the pool area.

Staff separating them.

Kalem's the one in the pinky top there, stood by the pool table.

As you can see, these young people here - really trying to get each other.

Picking up a chair now.

And they're both throwing chairs at each other at the same time.

Kalem is in the corner. Admittedly, he's finding it a bit funny -

he's holding his belly and having a laugh about it -

but he's actively getting out of the way of getting involved there.

Now what he's doing, he's going to run up and picking a staff radios.

He dropped the radio. And then he called for more assistance -

so he's asking for more staff assistance to come along.

Like another member of staff there!

Kalem in the past -

he would have been one of the first ones to get involved in any sort of rut going on.

He'd have been trying to nick the radio, rather than alert staff to it.

But he's sat there calmly as you like, not getting involved,

which is a great move on for Kalem - it really is.

When Kalem first came in, his emotions and his attitudes were all over the place.

Since he's been in here, trying to get him take on board

more responsibility for his own actions.

It's an ongoing process. You can see a daily change in some people, but others it takes a bit longer.

With Kalem, there's a definite change.

We've still got a long way to go.

So, yeah, I'm really chuffed with the way Kalem's progressed within the unit.

I want to go to college and stay there for a few years.

I want to learn plumbing and business studies.

-I'm thinking positive.

-Got a good business plan.

-Watch out!

-Sorry.

I'm learning, really, ain't I? I'm just here to learn.

I see myself as being normal - how I've been brought up, innit?

Just, er, learn the hard way and expect what you get, innit?

Like...

My dad gave me two options - go down the right way or the wrong way.

I chose the wrong way because I thought it was good

But I was wrong - I should have gone the good way.

So I do, really, and he was right, cos he went down the wrong way

and wished he went the good way.

So that's why I want to change things.

Next, the girls Vinney Green struggle to contain,

who are a danger to each other...

-Are you intimidated by me?

-Fuck your mum!

..and themselves.

Self-harm is more common with the females. Ligatures, especially.

For her own personal protection, we've had to strip the room.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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