Future Insecure

‘If we look at how it works in the future, you start off and you invest in young people with the best resources, you will have the best outcomes and young people will cost you less in the future.’  Manager, secure children’s home

Secure Futures

Prison is no place for a child and yet thousands of children each year are sent to large jails or privately run centres. With around three quarters of children going on to reoffend after leaving custody, these prisons are letting down some of our most vulnerable young people.

Help us to protect children and email your MP.

Two children committed suicide in January 2012 while housed in large child prisons. Yet the government is doing nothing to close these failed institutions down.

Most children in trouble with the law need help and support in the community to change their lives. But for the few who do need the safety of a secure environment, there are small, local units which can help. These secure children’s homes provide the highest standards of care and rehabilitation in the system.

Despite this, secure children’s homes have been the victim of a decade of closures: in 2003 the government funded 22 secure children’s homes. Now there are only 10 secure children’s homes left.

Instead of closing more secure children’s homes, the government should close large prisons and invest in our most troubled children. By transforming young lives we also ensure there are fewer victims of crime.

U R Boss is a project led by young people for young people that is part of the Howard League for Penal Reform. We have spoken to many young people in custody about how secure children’s homes can help turn young lives around.

As a result, on we have published Future insecure, a briefing on why the remaining secure children’s homes should be protected from any further closures, and have launched a film Secure Futures, which has been made by young people from a secure children’s home in England. Both the briefing and film have been launched in the House of Commons as we have taken the message to members of parliament that secure children’s homes should not be forgotten.