Leading children’s rights and justice organisations have called for an end to child imprisonment in England.
In a review, they argue that child imprisonment is beyond reform and that responsibility for children who have to be deprived of their liberty should be transferred from the Ministry of Justice to the Department for Education.
The review is published 20 years after the deaths of 14-year-old Adam Rickwood and 15-year-old Gareth Myatt in children’s prisons.
Rickwood killed himself after being restrained at Hassockfield secure training centre (STC); Myatt, who weighed less than seven stone (44kg), died after being restrained by three G4S officers at Rainsbrook STC.
MoJ pledges and policies on child imprisonment are benchmarked against the evidence in the review, which has been produced by the Alliance for Youth Justice, Article 39, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Child Rights International Network, Howard League for Penal Reform, Inquest, Just for Kids Law and the National Association for Youth Justice.
While the safety of children in prison is a stated MoJ priority, a 2017 report from the chief inspector of prisons said: “There was not a single establishment that we inspected … in which it was safe to hold children and young people.”
Although the government asserts that solitary confinement is not used for children, in 2023 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern about the “continued use of solitary confinement for children and segregation and isolation in child detention facilities”.
Restraint should only be used on children as a last resort and pain-inducing techniques reserved for extremely grave incidents, but earlier this year a report from HM Inspectorate of Prisons stated: “There was a high number of pain-inducing restraint techniques and strip-searches under restraint. Many of these incidents were not in accordance with national policy and were not properly authorised.”
The new review shows that imprisoned children receive far less than the promised 30 hours a week of “education and purposeful activity”. An inspection report into Feltham young offender institution (YOI) last month stated that many children received far less than 15 hours of weekly education.
The review also shows that children are being cared for by staff who are untrained and poorly managed, and that despite the pledge to provide support in custody to enable the children to thrive on release, “outcomes for children leaving custody remained, with a few exceptions, poor”.
Although there have been repeated promises since the 1990s that YOIs and STCs would be transformed, and the last government pledged to permanently close and replace them with secure schools (the first of which is due to receive children this summer), 81% of children in custody were still held in YOIs and the one remaining STC in June.
Only 19% were held in secure children’s homes, which are childcare establishments run by local authorities focused on providing intensive, expert multidisciplinary care and support to young people and their families. There was an average of around 440 children in custody at any one time during 2023.
The review concludes that children should only be deprived of their liberty when this is the only means of avoiding serious and immediate harm to the child or others, and – when this does happen – ministerial and civil service responsibility should rest with the DfE alongside other areas of child welfare.
Carolyne Willow, the founder director of children’s rights charity Article 39, said: “The cumulative evidence that imprisonment causes children serious harm, and cannot be made safe, is incontestable. Ministers can and must change this never-ending cycle of child harm once and for all.”
Deborah Coles, the executive director of the human rights charity Inquest, said: “Twenty years on from the deaths of Adam Rickwood and Gareth Myatt, child prisons have proved themselves incapable of reform and remain inherently dangerous and harmful. We need to close child prisons and invest in community support and services that protect and nurture children.”
A MoJ spokesperson said: “We are categorical that custody should be the last resort for children, reserved for those charged with the most serious offences. Frontline staff are working tirelessly to drive improvements and reduce violence, and we are committed to increasing the support these children need to turn their lives around.”
