The case for dramatic change is made by another voice inside government, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons and former chair of the YJB. In last month’s annual report, Taylor describes levels of violence and self-harm rising by just over a quarter and a third respectively in the last year. Nearly a third of teenagers spent less than two hours each day out of their cells. Nearly a third said they had not a single person they could trust to help them if they had a problem. A school that reported such results would be closed instantly.
Each year, Taylor’s annual report charts further deterioration. The government, now on its eighth youth justice minister in three years, seems at times unprepared to even acknowledge this problem.
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