Young Prisoners A Thematic Review by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales October 1997 CONTENTS PREFACE CHAPTER YOUNG PEOPLE, CRIME AND CUSTODY ONE Crime 1.01 Youth Crime 1.02 Society’s response 1.03 1.04 Risk Acrobat Distiller 7.0.lnk 1.05- Diversion from Custody and Early Intervention 1.08 1.09- Custody 1.12 1.13- Costs 1.17 1.18- Young Prisoners 1.23 CHAPTER WHAT WORKS AND FAILS IN CUSTODY TWO 2.02- Street Culture 2.03 2.04- Prison Culture 2.07 2.08- A suitable approach to custody 2.11 2.12- What works 2.17 2.18- Rules and Guidelines 2.24 Conclusion 2.25 CHAPTER WHO ARE THESE YOUNG PRISONERS? THREE 3.01- Numbers and status 3.04 Our Research 3.05 3.06- Profile of a Young Male Prisoner 3.10 Welfare Needs 3.11- 3.21 3.22- The Experience of Prison Service Custody 3.24 CHAPTER LEAST HARM - MOST GAIN FOUR 4.01- Introduction 4.05 4.06- Needs Based Reception and Induction 4.16 4.17- Containment and Discipline 4.32 The Need for a Structure of Safetyand Survival in each 4.33- Establishment holding Children and Young Adults 4.48 4.49- Busy Routines 4.62 4.63- Families 4.68 4.69- Tackling Offending Behaviour and Throughcare 4.83 CHAPTER HEALTH FIVE 5.01- Introduction 5.06 5.07- Assessing needs and screening 5.13 5.14- Health Promotion 5.19 5.20- Primary and specialist care 5.27 5.28- Mental Health 5.42 Leaving a young offender institution 5.43 CHAPTER SIX YOUNG WOMEN IN CUSTODY 6.01- Managing the custody of young women 6.12 Providing for young women in custody 6.13 6.14- Needs based reception and induction 6.21 6.22- Programmes Based on Needs Analysis 6.29 CHAPTER PEOPLE WORKING WITH CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS SEVEN Introduction 7.01 7.02- Managers 7.03 7.04- Current staff attitudes 7.05 Staff attitudes and Skills which Promote Success with Young 7.06- People 7.08 7.09- Selection in-house 7.10 External Recruitment 7.11 7.12- Ethnic Minority and Female Staff 7.14 Safeguards 7.15 7.16- Training 7.21 7.22- Support for staff 7.26 CHAPTER THE CURRENT SYSTEM - NOT A SYSTEM AT ALL EIGHT 8.01- Introduction 8.05 Getting it together 8.06 8.07- Children 8.10 8.11- Phasing 8.13 8.14 Young women between the ages of 18 -21 8.15- Young men between the ages of 18 and 21 8.24 CHAPTER RECOMMENDATIONS NINE To the Secretary of State 1 - 17 To the Director General 18 -23 1. Maps Showing Location of Prison Service Establishments APPENDICES Holding young prisoners 2. Rights of Young People in Detention 3. Establishments visited 4. United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials 5. Literature Review on the Health of Young People Aged 16-24 Detained in Young Offender Units or Prisons in England and Wales 6. Contributors 7. References Terms of Reference: To review the conditions for and the treatment of young prisoners aged between 15 - 21 who are held in Prison Service custody. The review will distinguish between conditions and treatment of children and those aged 18 and over. It will also distinguish between convicted and unconvicted young prisoners in both age groups. YOUNG PRISONERS - PREFACE One of the roles of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, working independently of the Prison Service, is to report on the treatment of prisoners, and the conditions in which they are held, directly to the Home Secretary. These reports mainly follow inspections of prisons, remand centres and young offender institutions, either unannounced or to a pre-planned programme. During the course of the inspection process the Inspectorate gains a unique insight into, and overview of, treatment and conditions of similar groups of prisoners, in different parts of the country, which we can contrast and compare, and draw our conclusions to the attention of the Home Secretary and the Prison Service. Despite the welcome addition of £43m for this year and next, currently the Prison Service is virtually overwhelmed by the competing pressures of a rapidly rising. population and a reduction in the resources available in existing establishments to deal with continuous detailed day to day realities. Inspections, inevitably, highlight the impact of these pressures on individual establishments, and many of my recommendations, while aimed at helping establishments improve their operational efficiency, are directed at Prison Service management, which is responsible for providing, or trying to obtain, the resources necessary to alleviate them. As I have inspected establishments holding similar types of prisoner, I have became more and more aware of, and concerned about, inconsistencies between them in the treatment and conditions of prisoners. These seem to depend not so much on what Prison Service Operating Standards say should be done, to tackle a prisoner’s offending behaviour for example, but on the resources made available to whichever prison, in whichever part of the country, a prisoner may be serving his or her sentence. This inconsistency has been increased by the Prison Service practice of allocating percentage financial cuts to individual Governors, for them to determine how they will apply them in their own establishment, rather than by laying down policy direction as to how they should be applied so that they affect all prisons of a similar kind equally. I have commented on this in many reports, because of its impact on the treatment and conditions of prisoners. Thinking through the results and implications, of both the pressures and the way in which cuts are imposed, led me to consider how the Inspectorate could best contribute to helping the Prison Service restore and maintain consistency in its treatment of the prisoners committed to its charge. I concluded that the most effective way of influencing, and hopefully encouraging, improvements was by drawing attention to particular problem areas by undertaking open, independent, informed, and constructive examinations, in which our experiences could be used to best advantage, and our findings and recommendations reported to the public through the Home Secretary and the Minister of Prisons. Therefore, with the full agreement of the Home Secretary and the Director General of the Prison Service, we have embarked on a series of studies into these areas of concern, beginning with our discussion document on Health Care "Patient or Prisoner" in November 1996, followed by our study on "Women in Prison" published in July 1997. But, of all the parts of the Prison Service that we inspect, the one that gives all of us in the Inspectorate greatest cause for concern is the Young Prisoner estate. By Young Prisoner the Prison Service means those between the ages of 15 and 21, the group being further broken down into juveniles (15-17) and Young Adults (18-21), both convicted and unconvicted. Few subjects engage public attention and anger more than the criminal behaviour of young people, mainly male, which is alleged to cost the country over 21 billion per year, and the victims between S2 and I3 billion. These are huge sums that no society can tolerate, and so it is hardly surprising that more and more punitive measures are advocated to try to discipline and wean unruly young people away from such activities. Our concerns have concentrated on the treatment and conditions of the increasing numbers of young people who end up in prison, where they are on the receiving end of the conditions which I have outlined above. Overcrowding has led to too many Governors having to breach Prison Service Operating Standards, by doubling up young people in cells which are below the minimum certified size for new establishments or refurbished parts of them. But, even worse, are the effects of resource cuts to regime activities, which mean that far too many are left locked up in their cells for far too long, because, in common with too many parts of the adult estate, there are not sufficient staff or instructors or facilities to occupy them fully. The treatment of young prisoners is something of a lottery, because it depends on conditions available in the establishment in which they are confined, as well as different attitudes towards them amongst some staff. This means that the few really good establishments, where young offenders are treated properly, stand out in sharp contrast to the majority where, despite the obvious wish and motivation of many excellent staff, conditions and resources are against them. I believe that if young prisoners are to be engaged by regimes, they must be convinced that the challenges and demands that are made are relevant not only to their needs, rectifying deficiencies in their previous upbringing, but offer them genuine hope of better things resulting from their training. These regimes should therefore be based on a full, purposeful and active day, such as is being provided in the two establishments, Colchester and Thorn Cross, which were given sufficient funds by the previous government, to conduct pilot schemes which are validating this belief. Examples of inequities in current resource allocation, which inhibit the replication of such regimes elsewhere, are spelled out in detail in the report. Therefore, because of our increasing concern, and following our discovery of some examples of unacceptable conditions, we embarked on a study of young people in prison, again with the full agreement of the Home Secretary and the Director General. Here I must point out that in establishment after establishment we found that Governors and staff alike felt deeply and strongly about the circumstances in which they were being forced to look after young, vulnerable and impressionable adolescents.