Report highlights poor conditions for children in custody

Life inside 2010, published by the Howard League for Penal Reform, is the first policy report to be published as part of the U R Boss project, following a series of workshops and one-to-one meetings with boys aged 15- to 17-years-old currently in custody and released into the community. 

Concerns raised by young people include:

• automatic strip-searches on arrival to prison
• failure to receive a daily shower
• failure to achieve targets allowing children time out of cell
• poor relations with staff due to staff ratios as low as three staff to every 60 young people
• violence and bullying
• a disproportionate use of physical restraint and use of segregation
• failures in the quality and quantity of food

Meanwhile, young people reported an average cost of 65p a minute for phone calls to family and a lack of family visits due to the distance children are jailed from their homes. Children also reported a lack of engagement in their sentence planning.

During the past three years, custody levels for under-18s have fallen by more than 20 per cent.

Standards of education in prison received particular criticism from the young people working with the Howard League. 

One young person described how education "is really poor in prisons" as "all they do is pull out bits of paper and make people copy them".

Another young person who had been in custody for a longer period described how "before we used to get 25 hours of education [a week], but now because of budget cuts we just get 15".

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League, said: "We have listened to young people in custody and produced a report that reflects their views and feelings about prison. 

"The result is a damning indictment of a broken system that promotes violence and fails to provide education and services.

"Despite welcome falls in the number of children in custody, this hasn’t been used as an opportunity to improve conditions for those who remain in prison."