NO one would suggest that young offenders be locked in a cell for 23 hours a day. Rehabilitation is a key role for any prison, and it is essential that teenage inmates are taught skills which could gain them a job on their release.

But juggling lessons? Goody bags? Easter egg hunts? This sort of indulgent nonsense brings the prison service into disrepute.

The sign outside Wetherby Young Offender Institution neatly symbolises the mistaken priorities within. It has been rebranded as the Secure College Of Learning.

Presumably the euphemism is to reassure new "students" who might have worried that a custodial sentence was quite an unpleasant experience.

Well-intentioned prison authorities are placing too much emphasis on understanding their charges and meeting their needs. They have lost sight of the wider social context.

Teenagers are sent to prison because they are criminals. They are burglars and thieves and arsonists.

To be locked up takes some doing. Most of the inmates will have previously been given community sentences and youth service support, but they have cocked a snook at all this by repeatedly breaking the law.

What they need to be taught is not juggling or dancing, but discipline and respect for authority. Unhappily, an apparent lack of sanctions to penalise prisoners' bad behaviour can only teach them the opposite.

What is happening at Wetherby is an insult to the victims of crime. It is offensive to the many teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds who have kept on the straight and narrow, only to see their law-breaking peers rewarded with video games and goody bags.

And it is wrecking prison officer morale.

Put bluntly, the regime is too soft. It must be toughened up or Yorkshire's "secure college" will further undermine public belief in our justice system.

Updated: 10:11 Wednesday, February 25, 2004