Rise in children and young people in custody feeling unsafe

According to findings from the Children in Custody annual survey, a third of boys held in young offender institutions (YOI) reported feeling unsafe, while 24 per cent of young people in secure training centres (STC) also said they felt unsafe at some point.

Those in YOIs who felt unsafe had higher rates of mental health and emotional problems on arrival (24 per cent), and were more likely to feel that they were not treated with respect by staff.

The proportion of boys in YOIs that felt unsafe rose six percentage points from 27 per cent in 2010/11 to 33 per cent in 2014/15.

For those in STCs, 39 per cent had experienced insulting remarks, 23 per cent had experienced physical abuse, and two per cent had been the victim of sexual abuse. In addition, 17 per cent felt threatened and intimidated, 32 per cent verbally abused and eight per cent had items stolen from them.

The study by HM Inspectorate of Prisons and commissioned by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) collected the views of 571 young people in YOIs and 203 children detained in STCs between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2015.

Lin Hinnigan, chief executive of the YJB, said: “We are concerned at the number of young people who do not feel safe at some point during their time in custody."

Just four out of 10 young people held in custody had a training, sentence or remand plan in place, significantly lower than the 51 per cent that had plans in place a year earlier.

Hinnigan added: “The purpose of custody is to help rehabilitate young people so that they can live crime-free lives, so reduced levels of purposeful activity are troubling."

Pippa Goodfellow, programme manager for Beyond Youth Custody at Nacro, described the fall in training, sentence or remand plans as “extremely worrying”.

“Young people need to be prepared for release not just in the weeks before they leave custody, but at the point they enter it,” she said. “This kind of planning can also reduce the anxiety that some young people experience as they transfer from custody to the community.”

The survey also showed that the number of children that identified as Gypsy, Romany or Traveller in YOIs rose from six per cent in 2013/14 to eight per cent in 2014/15. The figure for STCs stayed the same. 

Nick Hardwick, chief inspector of prisons, said: “In the period we have been conducting these surveys, the number of children in custody has fallen sharply, the shape of the estate has changed and policy initiatives have come and gone.

“We have repeatedly raised our concerns about the hugely disproportionate number of children in custody from a Traveller or Gypsy background. With any other group, such huge disproportionality would have led to more formal inquiry and investigation.”