The Kent YOI will be repurposed as an adult prison in a bid to solve a custody capacity crisis, the Ministry of Justice has announced.
Boys currently placed in the YOI will be transferred across the youth custody estate “on a case-by-case basis” ministers have said, with some expected to be moved to the new secure school planned to open on a neighbouring site – previously that of Medway Secure Training Centre (STC) next month.
Some 77 boys were held at Cookham Wood in April last year.
The setting has long been criticised by the sector, with a report by the YOI’s independent monitoring board, published in February, describing the treatment of children at the facility as “inhumane” and “getting worse”.
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