The prisons inspectorate has today (5 March 2024) published a report which describes a catalogue of mistreatment of highly vulnerable children in a prison in Wetherby, Yorkshire.
When inspectors visited in November and December last year, there were 165 children and young people detained, half of whom (49%) were looked after children and another third were entitled to leaving care support from their local authorities. Just under three-quarters of children had a disability.
The prison had the highest rate of self-harm of all prisons in the country: there had been 892 incidents of children self-harming across the previous year, and on 205 separate occasions the prison had initiated the formal process for suicide and self-harm monitoring and intervention, in respect of 63 children. Self-harming by the three girls held in the boy’s prison accounted for more than half of the year’s incidents.
Today’s report reveals:
- Prison officers had used force to strip-search 12 children across the past year. In none of these instances, did officers record who gave the authority for using force on a child to remove their clothes and underwear. In past research for the Youth Justice Board and the Children’s Commissioner for England (2011), children described strip-searching as a sexual assault which brought back memories of the sexual abuse they had suffered earlier in their childhoods.
- In two incidents, male officers forcibly removed all of a girl’s clothes because she was trying to use them to hang herself – treatment inspectors said was “simply not acceptable”. In at least one of these instances, the male officers cut the girl’s clothing from her body.
- Officers had deliberately inflicted pain on children as a form of restraint on nine occasions over the past year. The national panel established to review the use of pain-inducing techniques had found the infliction of pain in all of these nine incidents to be “inappropriate”. This suggests officers acted unlawfully and that children were subject to physical and emotional abuse. In 2019, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse described pain-inducing restraint techniques as “a form of child abuse” that should be prohibited by law.
- Despite the prison having 91 managers, 24 of them senior managers, there was poor oversight of video footage which captured the use of force. Inspectors randomly selected footage to review, and discovered an incident where a child had suffered an injury which had not been reported to managers.
- Seven hours a day was the most any child spent out of their cell in a 24-hour period, though some children were locked in their cells for 23.5 hours a day.
- 288 safeguarding referrals had been made to the local authority over the past year, of which 98 (34%) related to the use of force.
Separately, Article 39 recently obtained copies of letters sent to ministers in June 2021 and January 2022 by the national Independent Restraint Review Panel. This national panel was established upon the recommendation of an independent review of pain-inducing techniques which followed legal action by Article 39. It is chaired by the former chief executive of the Youth Justice Board. The letters to ministers followed visits by panel members to several child prisons. They informed ministers:
- The panel had observed “instances where intervention with force was not justified”, that is “there was not an immediate threat to safety, security or property” (June 2021 letter). The panel found “situations where whilst children were not doing as they were told, there was no immediate threat to safety, security or property” (January 2022 letter).
- Officers “responded to incidents in numbers which far exceeded what is needed” (June 2021 letter).
- The panel saw “instances where children were very distressed, struggling to breathe or in extreme pain” (June 2021 letter).
- Children “consistently talked about the injustice they feel when force is used and when their pleas for this to stop are ignored” (June 2021 letter).
- Children “see restraint as the norm [in prison] and are nervous about the consequences of raising concerns” (June 2021 letter).
- Healthcare staff were not intervening in incidents to protect children (June 2021 letter).
- Video footage of incidents “is often not available”; “too often staff do not switch their cameras on” (June 2021 letter).
- The independent advocacy service – first established following the restraint-related deaths of two boys, Gareth Myatt and Adam Rickwood, in child prisons run by G4S and Serco respectively – “is not recognised [by children] as providing them with a support mechanism” (January 2022 letter).
Carolyne Willow, Article 39’s Director, said:
“What inspectors describe has happened to girls and boys in this prison fall within official definitions of child abuse and neglect. Child protection and human rights laws do not stop at the prison gate. Shocking abuses will continue so long as we have ministers who tolerate child incarceration and the coercive, punitive mistreatment that goes with it. Seven years ago, the government announced child prisons would be phased out yet still there has been no publication of a closure strategy, should this exist.
“Children should not be in prison. While they are, there must be robust child protection and police investigations into all suspected abuse and officer criminality. Children who may have been unlawfully restrained must be provided independent legal advice, and reassurance that they will not be punished for seeking help and protection.”
Notes
- Looked after children are children who, prior to their incarceration, were the responsibility of local authorities. They were children in care.
- Official definitions of child abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect can be found in statutory safeguarding guidance here (from page 154).
- Following pressure by Article 39 and others, from 5 February 2024 government policy has prohibited the use of pain-inducing restraint techniques. ‘Emergency intervention techniques’ involving the infliction of pain are permitted to protect life and to prevent life-changing injuries. Article 39 is awaiting a response to a freedom of information request for more information about these techniques.