Going backwards
In January 2020 the prison inspectorate published a thematic report, Separation of children in young offender institutions. The findings were shocking: children were subject to widespread solitary confinement, spending more than 22 hours a day locked in their cells with no meaningful human contact or oversight. Yesterday (30 September 2024), the inspectorate published an equally damning follow-up report.
Separation of children in young offender institutions – review of progress found that separation continues to be used in response to high levels of conflict and in the absence of effective, motivational behaviour management schemes in YOIs. Leaders failed to provide most separated children with adequate access to education and other interventions, which in some cases were limited to just a few minutes a day. In the worst cases, on some days, children did not leave their cell at all; essentially in solitary confinement.
The header image above is reproduced from the inspectorate report and shows a segregation unit cell at HMYOI Wetherby.
Resources not the problem
In an accompanying blog post by lead inspector Angus Jones, the inspectorate makes it clear that a lack of funding is not the issue. In 2013/14 the Youth Justice Board spent £183 million on an average of 1,318 children in custody about £138,506 per child, by 2022/23 the Youth Custody Service spent £197 million for an average of 504 children or £390,415 per child. Even accounting for inflation this more than doubling of expenditure has failed to prevent declining outcomes. Instead of this investment leading to improvements, the opposite has happened. In 2023-24, YOIs were less safe than ten years before and none of them provided children with a good standard of education.
Key findings
The average population of YOIs in 2023–24 was 440. Inspectors found the use of separation within the YOI estate remained very high. Youth Custody Service data showed there were 1,038 instances of separation involving 480 children. Nearly two-thirds (64%) children reported that being kept locked up and prevented from mixing with other young people was used as a punishment.
The duration of separation experienced by children was also high, with 179 instances between 21 days and 100 days, and 21 children separated for over 100 days.
Lack of education
In 2023–24 it remained the case that children who were separated rarely received education. Those who did were not receiving anywhere near the statutory entitlement of 15 hours a week or equivalence with their peers who were not separated. At Cookham Wood, for example, 37 children had been separated for a total of 453 days in one month. These children received just 21 hours of education during this time, an average of fewer than three minutes per child each day.
Lack of reintegration planning
There was a lack of focus on ending the separation and reintegrating children into social groups, which led to prolonged periods of separation. The limited time out of cell and interaction with others meant that children were given little responsibility or opportunity to demonstrate that their behaviour had improved as part of the reintegration plans.
Poor oversight
Oversight remained inadequate. Data was now being collected centrally, but in most YOIs this did not match local data. For example, at Feltham A the central database recorded 240 episodes of separation for a 12-month period, while the local site recorded 289. Inspectors were informed that this was because national leaders did not count certain separations such as ‘imposed’ or ‘supervised’ separations.
Inspectors also found varying levels of oversight of separation at a local level: meetings did not always take place or were poorly attended. Despite the prevalence of high levels and extended durations of separation, there was a lack of strategic planning to tackle these challenges.
Conclusion
Prison Chief Inspector Charlie Taylor is blunt in his concluding remarks:
“Children’s time in custody should provide a vital opportunity to turn their lives around to give them the best chance of leading lives free of crime on release. Sadly, this review finds separated children continue to spend nearly all of their time locked in their cells.
It is a serious indictment of the Youth Custody Service that children continue to be held in what amounts to solitary confinement, four years after we published our thematic report. It is simply not acceptable that they are separated in the conditions we describe in this report, with the potential for long-term detrimental effects on their health, behaviour and learning.”
