Children Locked in Facilities with Rats. This Is Not Justice; It's Cruelty.

Children in the UK who have been imprisoned are living in decaying buildings with rats crawling around everywhere. Now, the therapy animals that were supposed to be used to help support traumatized children and help them heal are even being co-opted into the fight against rats - with one child witnessing a horrific attack and death of a shrieking rat right in front of them.

Rat-infested prisons are no place for a child. These young people have already been traumatized early in life - they need mental health counseling, support, and recovery, not severe cruelty. Sign the petition!

Living with rats is already psychologically torturous for humans. An adult, a 71-year-old man in the UK, said that while he was shortly (and wrongfully) imprisoned, rats ran over his body and face every night. He ended up developing PTSD from the horror of it all, and as a result he sued the UK prison service. And he was a fully grown adult. Imagine a child going through this? Rats running over their hands, faces, and bodies while they're at their most vulnerable, when they're trying to sleep?

And it's been getting worse. British prisons have apparently always struggled with rat infestations, but the problem has been growing. A huge rise in the number of rats in UK prisons and jails, including the ones where children are kept. Even workers' unions are complaining about the shocking situation.

There are approved ways to address vermin infestations, but the private contractors running these facilities are choosing more violent options instead. One manager told staff they should kill rats by "stomping on them or throwing them against the walls." Others have also given permission for staff to use therapy ferrets, therapeutic support animals kept in the prisons for the children's benefit, as hunting animals instead. One young child witnessed a staff member sic a ferret on a rat, saw the ferret violently attack the screaming rat, and then watched as the staff member repeatedly stomped on the injured animal until it died. Multiple other staff members also witnessed the disturbing incident.

On top of all that, rats sound like humans when they scream. So this child was hearing a human-esque scream, watching as the animal was assaulted to death. Further traumatizing a child who has already been thrown in a barren institution as punishment, for some action that undoubtedly arose from previous childhood trauma, is unacceptable.

Surely there are better ways to address children's behavior - therapy, restorative justice circles, truly anything besides prisons and rats. Sign the petition to demand that the UK stop throwing kids in jails and instead replace this system with mental health counseling instead!