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Concerns over therapy ferrets used to kill rats at UK’s largest children’s prison
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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"children's prison"
And it's the use of ferrets that's causing an issue.
What a time to be alive.
Blame the editor; there's no such thing, legally speaking.
How do you mean?
The UK has young offender institutes, which are not, legally speaking, prisons. I would expect someone writing headlines to use the official terminology.
Separately I am assuming that the OP isn't perturbed by the concept of punishing children (over some threshold age, at least) for crimes, which might include this kind of punishment, but takes issue with the image conjured by the word prison (which may be wrong, and only they can say)
So... What's the legal distinction? Because that just sounds like "Child Prison" with extra syllables
I am not an expert so am not the person to ask.
In a way it is a child prison with extra syllables, but as I said, my guess is that the OP doesn't object in principle to a 17 year old being locked up if they commit a serious enough crime.
That’s fair, they should be using the proper term in the headline.
If a child commits a crime in the UK, the Crown revokes their childhood licence; not legally a child, ergo not legally a children's prison
Oh my god that explanation is somehow worse. Thank you for explaining though. Childhood as a license 😱?!
Soon to become CaaS, Childhood as a Service.