The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to Her Majesty’s
Inspectorate of Prisons’ reports on Feltham prison, published
today (Friday 30 June).
Inspectors visited the prison, in west London, in January and
February. It is split into two parts: ‘Feltham A’, which holds
boys, and ‘Feltham B’, which holds young men. Both parts are
criticised heavily in today’s reports.
Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for
Penal Reform, said: “These are two of the worst in
a long line of terrible prison inspection reports. It is all the
more disturbing that they concern children and young people.
“These children are suffering abuse and neglect by the state.
Feltham has failed to care for children and help them turn their
lives around for decades. It is time to put an end to this
abusive failing system and properly help children live
law-abiding lives.
“The inspectors’ findings add weight to the concerns raised in
the High Court by the Howard League. The huge volume of calls
that we have received about this prison should leave no one in
any doubt about the scale of the problem.
“Thousands of children and teenagers have been subjected to
appalling treatment over the last two decades. The government
must act now to prevent more children being subjected to such
misery.”
In his introduction to the report on Feltham A, Her Majesty’s
Chief Inspector of Prisons, Peter Clarke, writes that it is
“deeply troubling that in an establishment of this kind the
judgements awarded to the key areas of safety and purposeful
activity had sunk to the lowest level”.
Violence had risen significantly to the point where the site “is,
quite simply, not safe for either staff or boys”. Use of force
had increased to a rate of 378 incidents per 100 children since
the last inspection, when it had been at 273. Not all staff
working with children in Feltham had been trained in techniques
for managing and minimising physical restraint. Staff in the
segregation unit, which contains both children and young adults,
continued to use control and restraint techniques designed for
adult prisoners and carried batons. In Feltham B, almost half of
the prisoners told inspectors that they had felt unsafe during
their time in the prison.
Inspectors found responses to violence in Feltham A ineffective
and that the regime did little or nothing to contribute to the
education or safety of the children. Forty per cent of the
children were locked up during the school day and 30 per cent
were out of their cells for just two hours a day. Boys on the
most restricted regime could have as little as 30 minutes a day
out of their cells for showers, phone calls and time outside. All
children had every single meal alone, locked in their
cells.
The inspectors’ findings echo concerns that the Howard League
legal team has raised about the treatment of young people in
Feltham, including the use of adult restraint techniques on
children.
Two months ago, the Howard League went to the High Court to make
a legal challenge on behalf of a boy who had been held in
prolonged solitary confinement in Feltham. The court heard that
the boy had been denied any educational provision for months.
Judgment in the case is awaited.
The Howard League has been contacted about 150 legal issues in
Feltham in the last year, with 78 per cent of calls coming from,
or on behalf of, BAME children and young people.
The charity’s lawyers have been contacted by or on behalf of
young people who are being regularly isolated for more than 23
hours a day; denied access to education; discriminated against;
unable to access healthcare when required; and being restrained
using inappropriate force, in one case causing a dislocated
shoulder.
Inspectors found that the regime in Feltham A had declined from
the “totally inadequate” average of time out of cell for each boy
of five and a half hours at the last inspection: at the time of
the inspection, on average, children were getting just four and a
half hours out of their cells each day against the Inspectorate’s
standard of a minimum of 10 hours out of cell each
day
The prison had enough school places and teachers, but fewer than
half of the boys were getting to lessons – 19,000 hours of
schooling had been lost in the past year due to non-attendance
and cancellation of classes. Although the Young Offender
Rules stipulate that children must have 15 hours of education a
week, on average boys were receiving just half of that. The
education outreach provision did not meet the needs of children
who did not attend education classes.
Some boys were given as little as 10 minutes in the open air each
day, giving inspectors significant concerns the “lack of sunlight
and exercise must carry implications for the health and
well-being of teenage boys”.
Shower rooms were squalid. Only three in five boys said that they
could have a shower every day.
The situation was little better in Feltham B, where inspectors
noted that some of the young men were locked in their cells for
more than 22 hours each day. Numerous restrictions and staffing
shortfalls meant that most prisoners were not provided with a
full regime.
The Feltham B report notes that the prison “seemed to be locked
into a negative cycle of responding to violence with punitive
measures and placing further restrictions on the regime to keep
people apart”.
“This response had not worked,” the report adds, “and there did
not appear to be any coherent plan to address the issue of
behaviour management in a different or more positive way.”
