Response to the Justice Committee Inquiry on ‘Children and Young Adults in the Secure Estate’ by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons

• We welcome the opportunity to submit a response to the Justice Committee’s call for evidence.
• His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMI Prisons) is an independent inspectorate whose duties are primarily set out in section 5A of the Prison Act 1952. We provide scrutiny of the conditions for and treatment of prisoners and other detainees and report publicly on our findings. HMI Prisons’ inspections are carried out against published inspection criteria known as Expectations. The Inspectorate sets its own inspection criteria to ensure transparency and independence.
• Of the four different types of custodial settings in the youth estate, HMI Prisons leads inspection of YOIs and jointly inspects STCs with Ofsted and the CQC. HMI Prisons inspects all adult prisons in England and Wales, where young adults may be held.
• The findings below are drawn from our 2024-25 Children in Custody annual report which covers five independent reviews of progress (IRPs) in YOIs where we followed up on the concerns raised at full inspections conducted in 2023-24 and the STC. More recent full inspections from later in 2025 are also referenced, as well as relevant thematic work.

• Though the numbers of children held in STCs and YOIs has fallen over the longer-term, this has slowed in recent years. Meanwhile, the proportion of those held on remand has risen. The limited number of YOIs, whilst positive, has meant that children are now often moved further away from their families and community. As of December 2025, 43 children in custody were being held between 75 to 99 miles from home, and 73 were housed 100 miles or more away from home.[1]
• HMI Prisons’ survey data consistently highlight the prevalence and complexity of needs of children in YOIs and STCs. Of children surveyed in 2024-25, 65% told us they had previously been in local authority care, 46% said they had health problems and 33% reported having a disability. One in 10 reported being parents themselves.[2]
• There has been a failure to improve outcomes in our key tests of Safety and Purposeful activity for many years. Apart from Parc YOI, we often report poor or not sufficiently good outcomes for the children held in YOIs and STCs. This is despite the significant resource allocated to the children’s estate and overall reductions in the population.

• We expect children to be held safely, to be cared for, engaged in education and other activity and prepared for their release. Too often however we find high levels of violence, weak relationships with staff and very limited time in education and activity.

Violence

• Levels of violence are much higher in YOIs than in the adult estate. One of the persistent problems in the children’s estate is the ineffective nature of the rewards or incentives schemes for good behaviour. In 2024-25, just 34% of children told us that these schemes encouraged them to behave well. This is a missed opportunity. Only at Parc did more than half of children report positively about behaviour management.[3]
• The majority of YOIs are unable to manage very high levels of violence and disorder, with most leaders resorting to keeping children who are in conflict apart. This limits the time children spend out of their cells and prevents many from attending education, health care and interventions to address their offending behaviour. Doing so often serves to further entrench a culture of division and hostility and does little to address the causes of conflict. Though sometimes necessary, this approach has become the norm for many establishments.
• In extreme cases staff resort to separating children completely from their peers. These high-level interventions have seemingly become commonplace: in 2024-25 61% of children surveyed reported having been separated from their peers because of something they had done. This varied across sites but was more than half of the children at every YOI and STC.[4] Such separation often entails extended periods of time alone in a cell, with little social interaction or activities to pass the time.
• In 2024-25 43% of children reported having felt unsafe in their current YOI or STC. This was the highest figure we have recorded for 10 years.[5] We regularly find children who don’t leave their cell for days at a time, often because they are scared. 
• These weaknesses in safety have led to very high levels of use of force; in 2024-25 there were more than 900 restraints per 100 children.[6] The frequency of incidents can overwhelm governance structures limiting the ability of leaders to identify poor practice. At Feltham A in June 2025, we found that there was a substantial backlog in use of force documentation. Body-worn cameras were not consistently worn or activated by staff during incidents involving restraint. This lack of footage, combined with limited inquiry into the context of the incidents, undermined oversight.[7] We often find high level pain inducing techniques are not used in line with MMPR (Minimising and Managing Physical Restraint) policy. 
• More positively, at Wetherby in November 2025, all children were interviewed following a restraint and MMPR coordinators reviewed all incidents, with weekly meetings for higher-level restraints.[8]

Weak relationships with staff and staff training

• Trusting relationships between staff and young people are integral to the safety and effectiveness of an establishment. Where relationships are strong, staff can effectively motivate children to engage with meaningful activity and help them to reduce their risk ahead of release. Positive relationships also enable officers to better challenge poor behaviour, de-escalate violent behaviour and assist with the prevention of suicide or self-harm.
• However, in 2024-25, just 49% of children told us they felt cared for by staff. Despite there being many more staff than children at every establishment, one in three children we surveyed said there was no one to turn to if they had a problem.[9] Staff turnover and lack of consistency in the staffing of residential units presented a barrier to the development of these relationships. Opportunities for basic interaction were often not taken; most children in YOIs for example had to eat all their meals alone in their cells.[10]
• At all three sites we visited as part of the Building trust thematic there were enough staff members in post, including managers, to deliver basics such as a weekly conversation or Custody Support Plan sessions with a child, and supervision with frontline staff. Despite this, most of these sessions were not delivered. At several sites high numbers of staff could not be deployed, because of sickness or injury, leading to inconsistencies in which staff were available to support the children.[11]
• The living units in Parc, Werrington and Wetherby are not specifically designed for children. This creates challenges, most notably at Werrington and Wetherby, where most children live on units that are far too large to facilitate meaningful relationships between children and staff.
• It continues to be the case that there are no qualification requirements for frontline youth justice workers which is in stark contrast to other similarly paid public sector professions. YOI staff are offered an opportunity to complete a foundation degree or level 4 apprenticeship in youth justice. However, the significant investment in these qualifications has not measurably improved outcomes for children and staff perceptions of this training differ greatly between the sites.
• Provision for neurodivergent children is in place at all sites. However, too often inconsistent delivery of the daily routine means young people with additional needs are not getting the basics, let alone specialist support. During a visit to Wetherby as part of our Building Trust thematic review, inspectors observed an afternoon session on the enhanced support unit, holding five children who needed bespoke daily routines. All of the frontline staff had been cross-deployed from other units, which undermined the unit’s purpose to provide consistent, specialist support for children with multiple needs.[12]

Limited time out of cell and purposeful activity

• Time out of cell continues to be a significant problem across the children’s estate. Only 61% of children surveyed in 2024-25 said they spent more than two hours out of their cell or room on weekdays, which dropped to 45% for the weekend.[13] A lack of access to fresh air and the restriction of movement to and from different physical spaces is not conducive to positive mental health, nor is the subsequent limiting of basic social interaction.
• Children attending activities in custody most commonly report being engaged in education. Smaller numbers say they are taking part in offending behaviour programmes and vocational training. However, in our 2024-25 Children in Custody report, 22% of children said they were not doing any of these activities; this ranged from 39% at Feltham to 4% at Parc.[14] This is despite the MoJ requirement that children in custody receive 15 hours of education a week.
• The £80 million education contracts that commenced in 2022 and cover YOIs in England have not delivered necessary improvements.[15] All three education providers are currently graded inadequate by Ofsted. 
• Parc YOI in South Wales, holding children from across England and Wales, operates in distinct contrast to what we find in the three public sector YOIs. In our 2024 report, we found that children on the highest levels of the rewards and sanctions scheme at Parc averaged 11 hours and 15 minutes out of their cells each weekday and 10 hours and 30 minutes at weekends.[16] Staff had strong relationships with the children; 87% told us that staff encouraged them to attend education and training activities.[17] The children benefitted from clear and effective systems in place for managing behaviour and an experienced and motivated staff team.

Safeguarding

• Formal safeguarding mechanisms are in place at all establishments, but our findings suggest that children have little confidence in these processes.
• Only 27% of children surveyed in 2024-25 said they would report bullying or victimisation by other children to staff. This finding suggests that all forms of bullying and violence are underreported in YOIs and STCs and shows clear weaknesses in current complaints procedures.[18] Contact with staff should be one of the first points at which children feel they can report concerns.
• During the inspection of Oakhill STC in 2025, we found that safeguarding tracking mechanisms were ineffective, recording was chaotic, cases that met the threshold for Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) referrals were not always progressed and that the safeguarding team was not consistent in identifying or responding to serious concerns about children.[19] The inspectorates’ lack of confidence in Oakhill’s ability to keep children safe was a key part of the decision with Ofsted to issue an Urgent Notification in July 2025. Conversely, at Werrington YOI, we found that safeguarding was promoted well and any referrals dealt with promptly.[20]

[1] Youth Custody Population Report, MoJ, December 2025

[2] Children in custody 2024-25. An analysis of 12-18-year-olds’ perceptions of their experiences in secure training centres and young offender institutions, September 2025

[3] Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[4] Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[5] Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[6] Youth Justice Statistics: 2024 to 2025 – GOV.UK

[7] HMYOI Feltham A – HM Inspectorate of Prisons

[8] HMYOI Wetherby – HM Inspectorate of Prisons

[9] Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[10] Building trust: the importance of positive relationships in young offender institutions. A thematic review by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, June 2025

[11] Building trust: the importance of positive relationships in young offender institutions. A thematic review by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, June 2025

[12] Building trust: the importance of positive relationships in young offender institutions. A thematic review by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, June 2025

[13] Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[14] Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[15] YOI Education Service Provision, 2022

[16] HMYOI Parc – HM Inspectorate of Prisons

[17] Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[18]  Children in Custody 2024-25, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2025

[19] Oakhill STC – HMIP Ofsted CQC 2025

[20] HMYOI Werrington, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, July 2025

• Provision for the very small number of girls in custody remains a source of concern. Our 2024 Wetherby inspection report highlighted failures of leadership leading to all male teams being used to remove clothing from girls who were self-harming. This led to the commitment to remove girls from YOIs.[1]
• The placement of girls continues to cause challenges for the YCS. The preference is to place girls into secure children’s homes; however these homes regularly refuse higher need girls who then have to be placed at Oakhill STC. There continues to be a need for specific provision that the YCS can rely on to meet the needs of this very vulnerable group.  
• Girls in custody often have long histories of exposure to traumatic events and come into custody with multiple and complex needs. In our 2022 thematic we found that girls were far more likely than boys to harm themselves, experience restraint and to be involved in violence during their time in custody.[2]

[1] HMYOI Wetherby, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, March 2024

[2] Outcomes for girls in custody, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, September 2022

• As the children’s estate has become more fragmented, it has become increasingly difficult to assess outcomes, measure progress or compare the different types of establishments which hold children. There are four different types of institution holding approximately 400 children, with different bodies involved in their monitoring and inspection across England and Wales, using multiple different frameworks.
• The high level of risk managed within YOIs and the vulnerabilities associated with the children held, means that HMI Prisons inspects YOIs more frequently than adult prisons. We are in establishments annually, either for inspection or for an Independent Review of Progress (IRP). STCs are inspected annually with additional assurance visits each year.
• We issue Urgent Notifications (UNs) in instances where we identify particularly serious concerns. For STCs, a decision to invoke a UN will be made in conjunction with Ofsted and the CQC. The Secretary of State has 28 calendar days to explain how outcomes for those detained in the institution will be improved in both the immediate and longer term. Since the creation of the UN process in 2017, six UNs have been issued at four children’s establishments. Four of the UNs were for two STCs. Of the four establishments affected, only Oakhill STC and Feltham YOI are still open.

• Many YOIs continue to hold a substantial number of young adults to help manage prison capacity issues in the adult estate without having the services to meet the needs of this group. Young adults should be transferred out of the children’s estate shortly after they turn 18, but many wait much longer for transfers. During our 2025 inspection of Werrington, more than one-fifth of the population was 18. This put additional pressure on the institution, which did not have the education or work provision for this age group.[1]
• The refusal of adult prisons to accept placements remains an issue and can result in considerable delays. These refusals are often driven by concerns about the volatility of younger prisoners and the impact they may have on the receiving establishment. Adult reception prisons are particularly reluctant to accept young people awaiting trial or sentencing, which represents a significant proportion of the children’s population.
• There is little evidence that the substantial amount of effort put into transitions by staff working in YOIs and the STC has much impact on the experience of the child once they arrive in the adult estate. Despite months of planning, the 18-year-old will often be subject to the same processes as any other prisoner. The different data systems in place also mean that information sharing between the children’s and adult estate can be unreliable and inconsistent.

Welfare, safety and rehabilitation

• Most young adults are in adult prisons, with little in place to address the specific challenges posed and faced by this cohort. We saw some examples of positive practice, such as in Bronzefield in the women’s estate, where some young adults were housed on a dedicated landing with a separate communal area. These young women reported feeling valued and part of a community and also benefited from access to a dedicated forensic psychologist.[2] However, we found provision for the majority of young adults in the male estate to be extremely limited. Few inspection reports from the previous 12 months note any age-specific provision or strategies for this group.
• In most prisons, we found very limited or no work being done to specifically support the safety, welfare or rehabilitative needs of young adults. Our 2024 inspection of Hydebank Wood Secure College in Northern Ireland was a positive exception.  Housing 18-24 year old males, it showed that when there is specific, properly resourced provision, perceptions of and outcomes for young adults can improve.[3] We assessed outcomes in each of our four healthy prison tests to be good.
• 18-24 year olds are consistently overrepresented in incidents of violence and other aspects of poor behaviour. This suggests that focussing resources on this group could have a disproportionately positive impact.

[1] HMYOI Werrington, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, July 2025

[2] HMP & YOI Bronzefield, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, August 2025

[3] Hydebank Wood Secure College, Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland, November 2024