Children in Custody- Time for Separation from the Prison Service

The Chief Inspector of Prisons has said he does not believe that children under 18 should be held in prison.  “The Prison Service is essentially an organisation for adults, neither structured nor equipped to deal with children. It is the plight of children that alarms us most, not least because of the conditions in which they are held in Prison Service establishments”. This was David Ramsbotham almost a quarter a century ago -but it should have been what his successor Peter Clarke said today.

Clarke’s shocking report on the separation in young offender institutions (YOIs) rightly calls for an entirely new approach to what is effectively solitary confinement, in which children spend long periods of time in their cell without any meaningful human interaction. But disappointingly, he stops short of demanding more thoroughgoing change to a system in which the atrocious treatment he describes is just one symptom.  After four years of diagnosing the ills of youth (and adult) custody, a more radical prescription from Clarke, who steps down shortly, would have been timely for two reasons.

First, the May government accepted the vision contained in Charlie Taylor’s review   that YOIs and Secure Training Centres should be replaced in the longer term by smaller secure units situated in the regions that they serve. But the Johnson administration has yet to confirm the vision is still in place - the manifesto talked only about “trialling secure schools.” A clear signal from the Chief Inspector that the current arrangements need to be replaced would usefully reinforce the case for bold, radical  and comprehensive action. Whether we need new secure schools is open to question, however. Think Tank Crest Advisory has recently argued for an explicit commitment to the closure of all Young Offender Institutions by 2025 and an expansion of secure children’s homes instead.  

Second, among the speculation about possible changes in the machinery of Johnson’s government, a case has been building -for example in last week’s Policy Exchange Report – that Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS)  be  reabsorbed into the Home Office, bringing prisons under the direct control of the Home Secretary, whose department deals with threat, harm and risk to public safety. There are many arguments against doing this, one of which is that it would make prisons even less suitable for dealing with children.  A better move would be to shift responsibility for youth justice to the Education Department alongside children’s social care and secure accommodation.

There’s no guarantee of course that the government would accept recommendations for these kinds of structural changes had Clarke made them. New Labour baulked at Ramsbotham’s proposal, leaving the new Youth Justice Board to drive up standards in YOI’s.  Short-lived improvements in the early 2000’s could not overcome fundamental structural faults. The Youth Custody Service too has struggled since 2017 to make YOI’s sufficiently child focused. Despite some good staff, the buildings, rules, procedures and culture are all too often simply wrong.

So too is the level of investment. The government in their response to the Taylor review promised additional specialist support units with a higher staff to young person ratio to provide enhanced psychological support and guidance to children and young people with the most complex problems.  The Inspectorate report’s finding that many children in YOIs are subject to unacceptably impoverished regimes tells a different and depressing story. 

Now’s the time to start writing a new chapter .