Policy & Practice: Soapbox - Real prisons will never be made to bechild-friendly

Of course staff are professional, but they are dealing with children who have had damaged lives and who have, in large part, been failed by those who should have protected them. Forty-five per cent of the children in prison have been permanently excluded from school. More than half have been in local authority care. Many will have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence. Most will have mental health needs.

Having failed to identify, or develop, alternatives to custody, government policy veered from a move to end the imprisonment of vulnerable children to trying to make prison more child-friendly. The unit was the wrong answer to the problem. But the real problem is how to fit young people with serious needs into healthcare, education and wider society. And that remains, however many nice new units are built.