The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to a joint
inspection report on Medway secure training centre in Kent,
published today.
The report – produced jointly by Ofsted, the Care Quality
Commission and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons – concludes
that Medway, which holds children as young as 13, is unsafe.
Medway became notorious in January 2016, when a BBC Panorama
documentary made allegations of child abuse at the jail. Criminal
proceedings in relation to this investigation are ongoing.
The National Offender Management Service (since replaced by Her
Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service) took over the running of
the jail from G4S last summer.
Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal
Reform, said: “Almost 18 months have passed since the BBC’s
shocking Panorama documentary, and yet today we read another
awful report on Medway, which is clearly unfit to look after
children.
“The Howard League opposed the creation of secure training
centres in the 1990s and warned that children would be damaged
and hurt in these institutions. For many years independent
inspectors’ findings have underlined that this is a failed model
of detention. After 30 years of children being mistreated and
their life chances damaged, it is time to put an end to this.
“The G4S years were disastrous. Unfortunately, running Medway in
the public sector does not appear to have made much difference.
Children are still being placed in this jail, despite there being
empty beds in the well-run local authority units.
“I shall be visiting the jail later this week to find out for
myself.”
Inspectors visited the jail in March and found it to be unsafe.
Security arrangements remained inadequate. Child protection
records were incomplete. Areas of the jail where children
reported feeling unsafe, such as stairwells and the education
block, were not covered by CCTV. There were problems with how the
jail, police and the local council worked together on
safeguarding.
Violence and use of force had risen, but violent incidents were
not recorded accurately. Inspectors found that no records had
been kept at the jail for several months from July 2016, although
the Youth Justice Board was still receiving data at the time.
Body-worn cameras had been issued to all staff, but they were not
always switched on when they should have been.
There had been five ‘serious injuries or warning signs’
identified during restraints, all of which involved children
saying that they could not breathe.
Inspectors report that “upskilling the workforce, the vast
majority of which were G4S employees, is a significant
challenge”. The jail is struggling to recruit staff, and generic
job adverts have been used, advertising positions for prison
officers, not specifically for secure care officers for those
aged under 18.
The governor told inspectors that employment history and past
performance information relating to staff who were employed by
G4S was not available to him. Inspectors describe this as a
“serious shortfall” as it means that staff who may have
experienced disciplinary or capability measures no longer have
this information on their employment records.
Most staff and managers at Medway have little understanding of
risks to young people, such as child sexual exploitation and
radicalisation.
