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The Justice Committee calls on the Government to guarantee that it will implement, by 2022, a long-delayed plan to build ‘secure schools’ to house detained children and young people, rather than hold them in the current secure places of detention.

• Read the Report: Children and Young People in Custody (part 2): The Youth Secure Estate and Resettlement
• Inquiry: Children and young people in custody
• Justice Committee

This was a key recommendation in a report released today that included calls for other improvements in the treatment and conditions of detention of children held on the secure estate in England and Wales.

At the same time the Justice Committee report welcomed the fact that the number of children and young people held in custody has fallen dramatically in the past 10 years – there are now 70 per cent fewer than was the case in 2010. This represents substantial success, the report said, particularly in finding alternatives to custodial sentences.

The Committee praised staff efforts to cope with the smaller, but more challenging cohort of detainees, many of whom have committed serious crimes.

‘Children’ are defined in the youth justice context as up to the eighteenth birthday. The youth secure estate has capacity to hold approximately 1000 children and young people. It currently holds fewer than 600. The number currently being held has been reduced by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Committee’s report, Children and Young People in Custody (Part 2): The Youth Secure Estate and Resettlement, regrets high levels of violence on the estate. The Committee also cites the Youth Justice Board as saying the level of self-harm across the estate had increased to its highest level for five years.

The report cites a 2016 review of the youth justice system by Charlie Taylor, the then-Chair of the Youth Justice Board, which called on the government to “change the entire way it thinks about youth custody” through the creation of the ‘secure schools’ concept. The review said:

“Rather than seeking to import education into youth prisons, schools must be created for detained children which bring together other essential services, and which are then overlaid with the necessary security arrangements”.

The report said the Government agreed with this and had committed to establishing ‘secure schools’. The Committee recommended that the Ministry of Justice “publish a timetable setting out how, where and when it plans to replace [current provision] with secure schools” and to “guarantee that the first school will open as now planned in 2022”.

Other concerns of the Committee included that witnesses had expressed significant worries about the use of separation (where a child is confined against their will) across the youth estate. The report quoted a witness who was a former child offender. Nadine Smith said:

“You would not put a puppy in a cage for a continuous period and not expect it to have pent-up rage or be aggressive or not want to interact with humans”.

The Committee said it was further concerned about differences in the practice of separation in different institutions. It called on the Ministry to set out what was being done to ensure coherent and consistent practice.

The Committee also said a significant number of children in detention had mental health needs and was disappointed hear that some were held in custody because of a lack of mental health treatment beds.

The report welcomed a Ministry of Justice statement that it had developed a new framework of care for children in detention, in partnership with the NHS, called ‘Secure Stairs’. However, the Committee said the Ministry should ensure young offenders with substantial mental health problems should be in the right place to receive the treatment they need.

The report expressed concern about the way children were released from detention, saying it was sometimes the case that they did not know where they were going to live until the very day of their release. It was imperative, the Committee said, that the various youth and social services agencies involved collaborated on issues such as the accommodation and employment of released children or young people.

The Chair of the Justice Committee, Sir Bob Neill, said:

“We’re pleased about the big reduction in the number of children and young people in detention. But those that remain are a big challenge; we salute staff who are doing their best to help them. We agree with the Minister of Justice, Lucy Fraser, when she says the concept of ‘secure schools’ is a good way to tackle these childrens’ needs. This is better than trying to bring education into inappropriate youth prison settings.

“But why is it taking so long for the secure schools plan to get off the ground? It is already five years since the original commitment to build them. We strongly recommend – and call on the Ministry of Justice to guarantee - that the first secure school will open in 2022”.

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees