Youth Justice: Young offenders with learning disabilities rejected in custody

The report No One Knows is published today (26 September) and looks at the experiences in custody of young adult offenders and adult offenders with learning difficulties and disabilities in Scotland. It follows up an earlier report that looked into the same issue in England and Wales.

Nancy Loucks, the author of the report, interviewed prison warders at Polmont Young Offender Institution near Falkirk, about measures in place to help offenders with learning difficulties. Loucks said resources in place in Scotland were slightly better than in England but that a lot of work still needed to be done to identify young people with learning disabilities. "We don't know how many have learning disabilities," she said. "We can only guess that it's a considerable amount and about 20 or 30 per cent of the prison population. It would affect their ability to cope when in prison and the problem is a lot of them are not identified and staff have little way of dealing with it.