Security Concerns

Three NHS England reports earlier this month have documented how children can be locked up- basically in prisons, hospitals, secure training centres (STCs) and children’s homes. The Scoping Study on Secure Settings for Young People didn’t look at police cells (presumably because of the shortness of the stays) or immigration detention (thankfully tiny numbers of under 18s). And it didn’t go into placements of children with serious disabilities who may be deemed to have their liberty deprived. But it’s a useful analysis of the 60 closed facilities in England, Wales and Scotland, the 1322 English children they detained in September 2016, and the views of parents and of professionals about the various placements.

Among those views was the perception that despite the notional clarity of the different components of secure care, “detained young people in all types of setting often shared similar, disadvantaged backgrounds and characteristics, including mental health difficulties”. The census of young people found high levels of mental health morbidity in both youth justice and welfare placements, many looked after children in all the placements and lots of young people in welfare placements with a history of contact with youth offending teams.

While this overlapping profile of need argues for a streamlining of secure provision, the government are instead embarking on the creation of yet another type of custody- the secure school.  There may be something to be said for reconceiving “youth prisons as schools”, as Charlie Taylor’s 2016 review urged the government to do. But the poor track record of all kinds of closed institutions for young people (however they are labelled) calls at least for careful testing of any new approaches.

Former Justice minister Phillip Lee got this, telling the Justice committee last year that the secure schools idea is a pilot, which if proven a success should be rolled out across the country. By contrast, Lee’s successor Edward Argar has already concluded that “Secure Schools represent an entirely new approach to managing youth custody and are the best solution to address violence in the youth estate, improve outcomes for children leaving custody and reduce the unacceptably high level of reoffending in this sector”. Such hubris is hardly justified by the history of custodial establishments.  

Even if they work better than previous incarnations, I very much doubt there will be the funds for secure schools “to replace most existing youth custodial provision” as Charlie Taylor’s review expected. For one thing, ministers will point to the fact that Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) are improving slightly – although the claim in the 2017-18 Prison Performance Ratings that they are all “exceptional or meeting the majority of targets” is misleading as Feltham (and Parc) where performance is “of concern” are not categorised as YOIs.

The Government also faces calls to use scarce resources to reverse the recent decline in the number of beds in secure children’s homes (SCHs) and increase the number of mental health beds for young people. 

The NHS England study found 62 English children placed in secure units in Wales and Scotland and I understand there are often 20 plus children on a waiting list for a secure bed. A dismayed, frustrated and outraged judge has recently called the unavailability of appropriate secure placements for a 16-year-old from Bromley “a wholly unacceptable situation”, echoing LJ Munby’s warning last year that as a result “we will have blood on our hands”. There’s no doubt that the quality of care in SCHs is much better than in STCs or YOIs, notwithstanding the Prison Ombudsman’s report about the ineffectiveness of wellbeing checks in respect of two young people who died in SCHs early last year.

The Children’s Commissioner has suggested that one of the reasons for the troubling increase in the use of segregation in YOIs and STCs may be shortages of NHS mental health beds – “sometimes children spend long stints in segregation while waiting for a mental health bed to become available”. If funds are available, then more SCH and health places would seem more sensible than new secure schools. (I struggle to see how the proposed new schools will differ much from SCHs in any event)

But two further lessons emerge from the current debate about secure settings. First, we need a much more coordinated approach to commissioning and governance of secure facilities to break down the silos identified by the NHS England survey. In the Bromley case, the judge sent her ruling to the Secretaries of State for Education and Communities and Local Government; when it was raised in Parliament the Prime Minister said it was a matter for the Health Secretary. At that moment the TV camera zoomed in on the Justice Secretary. A cross departmental secure task force is urgently needed.

Second is the need for investment in a wider range of high-quality alternatives so that local authorities and the youth custody service have more options short of deprivation of liberty. The reduction in the number of children in custody over the last ten years has been a major achievement but further progress could and should be made. In international law, the arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child must be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period.

I'd argue for a more fundamental rethink of  secure care;  less as a therapeutic intervention and more as a way of holding very damaged and risky young people only for the short periods required to plan effective and properly resourced care in the community.