The House of Commons Justice Committee has called on the
Government to guarantee that it will implement, by 2022, a
long-delayed plan to build ‘secure schools’ to house detained
children and young people, rather than hold them in the current
secure places of detention. This was a key recommendation in a
report released today that included calls for other improvements
in the treatment and conditions of detention of children held on
the secure estate in England and Wales.
At the same time the Justice Committee report welcomed the fact
that the number of children and young people held in custody has
fallen dramatically in the past 10 years – there are now 70 per
cent fewer than was the case in 2010. This represents substantial
success, the report said, particularly in finding alternatives to
custodial sentences.
The Committee praised staff efforts to cope with the smaller, but
more challenging cohort of detainees, many of whom have committed
serious crimes.
‘Children’ are defined in the youth justice context as up to the
eighteenth birthday. The youth secure estate has capacity to hold
approximately 1000 children and young people. It currently holds
fewer than 600. The number currently being held has been reduced
by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Committee’s report, Children and Young People in Custody
(Part 2): The Youth Secure Estate and Resettlement, regrets high
levels of violence on the estate. The Committee also cites the
Youth Justice Board as saying the level of self-harm across the
estate had increased to its highest level for five years.
The report cites a 2016 review of the youth justice system by
Charlie Taylor, the then-Chair of the Youth Justice Board, which
called on the government to “change the entire way it thinks
about youth custody” through the creation of the ‘secure schools’
concept. The review said:
“Rather than seeking to import education into youth prisons,
schools must be created for detained children which bring
together other essential services, and which are then overlaid
with the necessary security arrangements”.
The report said the Government agreed with this and had committed
to establishing ‘secure schools’. The Committee recommended that
the Ministry of Justice “publish a timetable setting out how,
where and when it plans to replace [current provision] with
secure schools” and to “guarantee that the first school will open
as now planned in 2022”.
Other concerns of the Committee included that witnesses had
expressed significant worries about the use of separation (where
a child is confined against their will) across the youth estate.
The report quoted a witness who was a former child offender.
Nadine Smith said:
“You would not put a puppy in a cage for a continuous period and
not expect it to have pent-up rage or be aggressive or not want
to interact with humans”.
The Committee said it was further concerned about differences in
the practice of separation in different institutions. It called
on the Ministry to set out what was being done to ensure coherent
and consistent practice.
The Committee also said a significant number of children in
detention had mental health needs and was disappointed hear that
some were held in custody because of a lack of mental health
treatment beds.
The report welcomed a Ministry of Justice statement that it had
developed a new framework of care for children in detention, in
partnership with the NHS, called ‘Secure Stairs’. However, the
Committee said the Ministry should ensure young offenders with
substantial mental health problems should be in the right place
to receive the treatment they need.
The report expressed concern about the way children were released
from detention, saying it was sometimes the case that they did
not know where they were going to live until the very day of
their release. It was imperative, the Committee said, that the
various youth and social services agencies involved collaborated
on issues such as the accommodation and employment of released
children or young people.
The Chair of the Justice Committee, Sir , said:
“We’re pleased about the big reduction in the number of children
and young people in detention. But those that remain are a big
challenge; we salute staff who are doing their best to help them.
We agree with the Minister of Justice, Lucy Fraser, when she says
the concept of ‘secure schools’ is a good way to tackle these
childrens’ needs. This is better than trying to bring education
into inappropriate youth prison settings.
“But why is it taking so long for the secure schools plan to get
off the ground? It is already five years since the original
commitment to build them. We strongly recommend – and call on the
Ministry of Justice to guarantee - that the first secure school
will open in 2022”.
