CYP Now - Prison service blocked access to education for children at two YOIs, inspectors find

Attempts by prison managers to reintroduce face-to-face education for children at two young offender institutions (YOIs) following the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic were blocked by the prison service and national staff associations, inspectors have said.

Inspectors visited Werrington YOI and Feltham YOI

Short scrutiny visits to Feltham YOI and Werrington YOI also revealed that most children at both sites were still locked up for most of the day after four months of lockdown restrictions.

Peter Clarke, HM chief inspector of prisons, says in his report on the visits that the “main concern” of HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) when lockdown restrictions were introduced in YOIs in March “was the decision to stop face-to-face education”.

“As a consequence, nearly all children had been locked up for more than 22 hours every day since the start of the restrictions, which had been imposed some 15 weeks before our visit. “This was both disproportionate and avoidable,” Clarke says.

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