"Battery farm" child prisons
Press Release
9 February 2012
“Battery farm” child prisons criticised as secure children’s homes face further cuts
As the youth justice board (YJB) plans to decommission more beds in secure children's homes, the Howard League for Penal Reform has released a briefing on the secure estate: Future Insecure, calling for custodial decisions to be based on evidence of effectiveness and safety, rather than simply cost. The briefing comes only weeks after two children died while in prison service custody.
In an open letter to Frances Done, the chair of the YJB, Frances Crook, the chief executive at the Howard League for Penal Reform implored the YJB to retain the use of beds in secure children’s homes for children in custody saying, “it is unacceptable that nearly 2,000 children are to be left languishing in young offender institutions and secure training centres”. She also calls a recent consultation event on the future of the secure estate a “propaganda exercise” and cites the “dismal history” of privately run secure training centres (STCs) as a reason to close them down.
Frances Crook said, “The recent reduction in the number of children in custody is to be welcomed. However, this should have been used as an opportunity to close failing prisons, which cannot meet children’s needs. The battery farm model of young offender institutions, with hundreds of troubled children under one roof, is wholly inappropriate, while the privately run secure training centres have a dismal history around the use of restraint.
“Evaluations of the effectiveness of the different types of custody have not been completed and so we know that decommissioning decisions are effectively decisions made in the dark. Cost appears to be the only real consideration, with the YJB reducing the number of beds in the effective, but expensive, secure children’s homes while continuing to rely on huge child jails and privately run training centres.
“Already this year we have seen the suicides of two children in prison custody. A change of policy that prioritises the safety of children and invests in meaningful attempts to reduce reoffending cannot come too quickly. The contract for Medway STC is ending soon and the Howard League is calling for its decommissioning as the first step in the reconfiguration of the youth justice system.”
Secure children’s homes provide the highest standards of care and rehabilitation for the few children in trouble with the law who have to be detained in custody.
Recent figures released by the Ministry of Justice have shown that serious or other life-threatening warning signs have occurred 285 times when children have been restrained in STCs over the past five years, including hospitalisation, loss of consciousness and damage to internal organs. Despite their institutionalised failings and the risks that they pose to the safety of children, no places have been decommissioned in STCs since they opened.
Latest statistics show that restraint use in secure children’s homes (SCHs), secure training centres (STCs) and young offender institutions (YOIs) went up from 6,922 incidents in 2009/10 to 7,191 incidents in 2010/11 (a 3.9 per cent increase). The rise comes despite the average number of young people in custody dropping by 17 per cent from 2,670 in 2009/10 to 2,222 in 2010/11.
Secure children’s homes have been the victim of a decade of closures: in 2003 the YJB contracted with 22 secure children’s homes to provide 297 places in England and Wales. There will be just 166 places left in 10 secure children’s homes for over 2,000 children who are imprisoned.
The Howard League screened a film in the House of Commons on 8 February to decision makers and cabinet ministers to coincide with the release of the Youth Justice Board’s secure estate strategy. The film was made with young people in secure children’s homes and the screening was sponsored by Ian Swales MP.
Further information
Sophie Willett 0207 241 7866
Sophie.willett@howardleague.org
The briefing paper Future Insecure and film has published by the Howard League’s U R Boss team. U R Boss is a ground breaking youth justice project supported by the Big Lottery Fund that provides an enhanced legal service shaped by and for young people in custody and those recently released into the community.
