Young offenders locked up for over 22 hours a day, MPs hear
MPs have been warned it is “unacceptable” that children in young offenders institutions are still being locked up for in excess of 22 hours a day, 10 weeks after lockdown.
Many of them have had no access to face-to-face education during that time, the justice select committee hearing on the impact of Covid-19 on the youth justice system was told.
The custody estate should have moved more swiftly, and there are now real concerns that young offenders, who had initially accepted the restrictions placed on them, would lose patience if they see changes to lockdown in the community, but no relaxation of regimes in YOIs.
Very few children had been released under the early release scheme, the committee heard. Since lockdown, there had been additional evidence of self-harm and increased attempted suicide, which was being tested.
“Was it acceptable on 23 March to shut down regime, including education, so that you can assess the situation and start delivering a service safely to children? Absolutely it was,” said Angus Mulready-Jones, the inspectorate of prisons lead for children and young people.
“Is it still acceptable, 10 weeks down the line, to be in a position where children across the estate are locked up for in excess of 22 hours a day? No. I think that is not an acceptable position, and the estate needed to have moved quicker.”
Findings from four weeks into the coronavirus crisis – around 20 April – discovered that time out of cell was “very poor in the public sector estate”, with the privately-run Parc Prison and young offender institute in south Wales performing “five times better” than Cookham Wood young offender institution, said Mulready-Jones.
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“Those differences remain today, where Cookham Wood is delivering less than one hour out of cell each day for the children there, whereas Parc in South Wales is delivering closer to four hours out of cell.”
He said the key difference was the amount of educational activities on offer. At Parc, provision was more akin to that offered to vulnerable children in the community. “Most children in custody would fit that description , and so in my opinion, custody needed to have moved quicker to deliver education in the sites that it has, particularly those children’s sites.
“And, until they deliver adequately some form of education, those regimes will still remain inadequate,” he said.
Peter Clarke, chief inspector of prisons, said some YOIs had wanted to introduce face-to-face education after lockdown “but were prevented from doing so because there was central direction”.
Clarke added there now needed to be flexibility and the ability to mitigate “the bad effects of long-term isolation, which is what boys in YOIs are experiencing at the moment.”
“We have spoken to governors, not only in the YOIs, but wider across the custodials, who are becoming frustrated with their inability to innovate and mitigate at a local level. And, I think it needs to happen.
“We are being told now that whilst prisoners and children in YOIs have understood the need for restrictions so far, as they begin to see the situation changing in the community they will lose patience if they don’t see a similar progression, not necessarily at the same pace, but some progression within the custodial state in terms of relaxing regimes,” he said.
