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Table of contents

  1. What we found
  2. Further resources

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Children in custody 2024–25

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Children in custody 2024-25 - report (PDF, 1.0 MB)

An analysis of 12–18-year-olds’ perceptions of their experiences in secure training centres and young offender institutions.

What we found (Back to top)

Although the number of children held in YOIs and Oakhill STC had decreased since the last annual review, outcomes had not improved, despite improved child-to-staff ratios. Appalling findings at Cookham Wood in 2023 had led to its closure as a YOI in 2024, but this merely meant that children were moved to other struggling establishments.

Violence was rife, with 43% saying they had felt unsafe at some point and 61% experiencing some form of bullying, violence or victimisation from other children, yet shockingly only 27% saying they would report this victimisation. In the absence of effective behaviour management schemes, staff resorted to keeping children apart from each other or separating them completely, and some children stayed in their cells because they were scared. This limited their ability to get to activities, with 39% at Feltham A saying they were not engaged in any education, work or training. Even when children did make it to activities, the quality of provision was frequently poor.

Read the press release in full
Children in custody 2024-25: many of the issues we identified in our 2023-24 inspections remained. Safety was still not good enough: there was insufficient or no meaningful progress in 55% of the safety concerns identified at our previous inspections and 45% with good or reasonable progress. Children with a disability were more likely to have felt unsafe in the establishment than those without a disability. For some children, relationships with staff were poor: children from an ethnic group other than white were less likely to report feeling cared for by most staff. Muslim children were less likely to report feeling respected by most staff. Time out of cell varied across establishments: on average, 61% of children reported spending two hours or more out of their cell on weekdays. This ranged from 97% to 33% across establishments. On average, only 45% of children reported spending two hours or more out of cell at weekends. This ranged from 86% to 28% across establishments. Who are the children in our survey? 99% identified as male; 1 in 3 reported having a disability; including any physical, mental or learning needs that affected their day-to-day live; 2 in 5 were unsentenced or on remand and 10% reported having children of their own. Some groups continue to be overrepresented: 33% were Muslim, 8% were from the Traveller community, 63% were from an ethnic group other than white, 46% had health problems (including mental health) and 65% reported having been in local authority care.
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Further resources (Back to top)

Children in custody 2024-25 – Survey results for all children (Excel workbook)
(XLSX, 133 KB)
Children in custody 2024-25 – Survey results for secure training centres (Excel workbook)
(XLSX, 93 KB)
Children in custody 2024-25 – Survey results for young offender institutions (Excel workbook)
(XLSX, 122 KB)