Prison for young offenders has always carried a heavy stench of controversy, and depending on your viewpoint it is either used too little or too much. With this in mind, it is not surprising that the Youth Justice Board's rejigging of its policy on types of custodial establishment (YPN, 28 January-3 February, p2) has sparked mixed reactions.
The fallout from the board's decision, for financial reasons, to buy fewer places in local authority-run secure children's homes in order to make greater use of cheaper secure training centres is already emerging.
Stamford House, a secure children's home in Hammersmith, west London, faces a bleak future. The board has decided to buy no more places at the facility and, as a consequence, the council is considering closing the unit.
Start of a trend
The Secure Accommodation Network, which represents secure children's homes across the country, is warning that if the board makes similar decisions elsewhere, Stamford House won't be the only establishment under threat of closure.
Secure training centres, the board's alternative to the local authority secure children's homes, are controversial in themselves. The centres are run by the private sector on the board's behalf by companies like Group 4, under its Rebound brand name.
Fran Russell, assistant director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, says the nature of secure training centres is objectionable.
She says: "We believe they are better than prisons but we oppose the whole concept of the private sector making money out of prisons."
The Howard League, while against custody for young offenders full stop, believes greater use of local authority secure children's homes is a superior option to secure training centres and young offenders' institutions (YOIs).
For the Youth Justice Board, which hopes to reduce its use of prison in the long term, budget constraints and a lack of places in both secure training centres and secure children's homes mean tough choices have to be made.
Paul Bowers, director of service delivery at the board, explains how the board decides where to place offenders: "Each individual is assessed by their local youth offending team worker. We look at whether they have been in care, whether there are family or mental health issues, a risk or history of self-harm or suicide. We try to create a picture of how vulnerable they are. If they aren't vulnerable or are above the age for secure children's homes or secure training centres, which are geared to a younger age group, they go to prison."
He explains that a big issue is that the number who are vulnerable exceeds the number of available places. "If there are vulnerables who cannot be placed, it is those who are least vulnerable who go to YOIs and we then work with the individual prisons to support them," he says.
The decision is not final and, based on monthly assessments, young people are often moved from prison to non-prison establishments and vice versa.
Young people sometimes want to go to prison.
"Some grow out of being in a secure training centre or children's home because they are geared towards younger people. Sometimes the offender does not need the intensity of the non-prison sector, or they find the environment too immature or would prefer to be with people their own age," says Bowers.
While the gulf between the regime of YOIs and the two other forms of youth custody is obvious, the differences between secure training centres and secure children's homes are less clear.
Size is a key factor. The number of offenders at secure children's homes varies from as few as six to as many as 36. In comparison, secure training centres take at least 40 and up to as many as 76.
Paul Cook, director of children's services for Rebound, says: "Secure training centres are much larger than secure children's homes. There is also a much greater emphasis on education: a higher amount than any other type of establishment in the secure estate."
Another bonus for secure training centres is that they are purpose built, especially compared with YOIs, which were often built without young people in mind. But the lack of studies into each type of custody, something the board is actively looking to commission work on, means comparisons between the three are difficult.
A bad decision
For the Howard League, the swapping of secure children's homes for secure training centres is a foolhardy approach.
"When the Youth Justice Board first talked about secure training centres, they were going to replace prisons, not secure children's homes," says Russell. "It is a grave mistake to use them to replace secure children's homes and the board will rue the day it made this decision."
Ultimately, warns Russell, the lack of non-prison places puts vulnerable young people at risk. She points to the case of 16-year-old Joseph Scholes, who committed suicide at Stoke Heath YOI.
"Scholes ended up in prison because of a lack of secure children's home places," she says. "He died because of that."
ESTABLISHMENT TYPES
- Young offenders' institutions: emerged out of the prison service.
There are 30 to 60 young people to a wing and relatively low staffing levels
- Local authority secure children's homes: set up in the 1960s. They are run by local authorities, resulting in big variations around the country.
They hold six to 36 young people and have the highest staffing levels
- Secure training centres: first opened in 1998. Three exist and three more are in the pipeline. They are privately run but owned by the Youth Justice Board. They hold 40 to 80 young people.
