Prisons failing to give young people legal support

The report, entitled Access to Justice Denied: Young Adults in Prison, focuses on 18- to 21-year-olds in prison and also warns that threats to funding for young offender institutions (YOIs) risk failure to prepare young people in custody for their release into the community.

Of the 25 YOIs contacted by the Howard League, only 13 were able to confirm that they had an LSO. This contravenes a Prison Service order that states that all prisons are required to have an appointed officer.

"Young people must absolutely be given the right support for their sake and for the sake of all of us. The law and our society require this as the very minimum," said Chris Callender, assistant director and head of legal at the Howard League for Penal Reform.

"Good-quality legal advice and representation transforms young peoples’ lives, saving unnecessary prison costs, protecting communities and breaking expensive cycles of offending."

The Howard League for Penal Reform is a member of the Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance, a coalition of leading organisations in the youth and criminal justice sectors that aims to improve the opportunities and life chances of young people who are at risk of committing crime and falling into the criminal justice system in their transition to adulthood. It was set up by the Barrow Cadbury Trust in 2008.

"Young adults are only one-tenth of our population but represent a third of all those sentenced to prison each year and make up a third of probation cases. We cannot allow cuts to the criminal justice system to compound this situation," said Debbie Pippard, head of programmes at the Barrow Cadbury Trust.