With continued social distancing measures in place in the UK, some children in the country’s young offenders institutions (YOIs) have been locked in their cells for over 22 hours each day.

As part of a programme assessing the prison estate during the pandemic, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) visited three YOIs on 21 April – Parc, Cookham Wood, and Wetherby. At Cookham Wood the children and young people were restricted to 40 minutes outside of their cells, whereas at Wetherby the limit was an hour. The youngest inmates at both are 15-years-old.

The inspectors found wide-ranging inconsistencies in the pandemic restrictions in place across the YOIs visited. For example, children at Parc received more than three hours out of their cells each day. Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons, said: “While a reduction in time unlocked was inevitable, the variation between establishments was a concern and raised the question of the need for, and therefore the proportionality of, the most restrictive regimes.”

This increase in time spent isolated is only one aspect of a regime of restrictions implemented to curb the spread of the virus across the prison population. There is evidence that the restrictions, impacting all aspects of life in children’s jails including worship and social visits, are succeeding in preventing a wide-scale outbreak. However, following a week where five suicides in six days were recorded at prisons in England and Wales, it is feared the regime’s impact on inmates has been devastating.

IRREGULAR AND RESTRICTIVE REGIMES

The inconsistencies between the regimes found by HMIP were significant. For example, in terms of education, of those inspected Parc was the only institution still providing in-person teaching. Yet as discussed in June at the justice select committee hearing on the impact of Covid-19 on children’s jails, many inmates have had no face-to-face education since the national lockdown started on 23 March. Their report described teachers being sent home and school buildings as closed.

The government’s guidance for children deemed vulnerable was to continue attending schools locally. Emphasising the relevance of this for young offenders, Clarke added that “most children held in custody would meet this definition, and the leaders of all three establishments had wanted to deliver at least some education within public health guidance, so it is hard to see the justification for why such different approaches had been taken.”

Likewise, at the time of inspection Parc was also the only institution to have implemented video calling. Considering the UK’s lockdown and consequently the ban on social visits began weeks earlier, this led inspectors to report that managers at all three sites had been too slow to adapt. One boy described the lack of visits as “the hardest thing” he’d gone through.

In the YOIs inspected, children had been provided with additional phone credit. But, for no clear reason, the inspectors reported “significant” differences in the amounts provided to children across the different institutions. Children were given £5 a week at Parc and £20 a week at Cookham Wood and Wetherby. In response to these discrepancies, a Youth Custody Spokesperson said staff had been “creative in providing children with meaningful contact with others…”

CAMPAIGNERS CALL FOR LENIENCY

While the number of children arriving at YOIs has slowed since the start of the pandemic, new children are still being taken into children’s jails despite the restrictive regimes in place. All new arrivals are being separated from the rest of the prison population for 14 days. During that time, under current restrictions children can interact with only those inmates who arrived on the same day as them. As a result, those children who were the only arrival on a particular day have no interaction with other children for a 14-day period.

In light of this impact of the pandemic on children in detention, charity Just for Kids Law wrote an open letter to the government asking that arrests are only used as a last resort, placing children in police cells is avoided, and the overnight detention of children in police custody is suspended. According to the charity, in 2019 a total of 7,038 children were detained in police custody overnight in London alone.

Echoing this, the Howard League for Penal Reform has drafted guidance to help lawyers keep unsentenced children out of prison. They emphasize the importance of effective bail applications and the need for defence advocates to ensure the courts “apply anxious scrutiny” for all decisions concerning children’s care during the pandemic. They advise that in cases where bail is refused, lawyers should argue that the prison estate is unable to meet the basic needs of children at this time.

One in three children in prison in England and Wales are believed to be held on remand – the highest proportion ever recorded. According to The Howard League for Penal Reform’s research, Government figures indicate that most of these children will not go on to receive a custodial sentence. HMIP’s report concluded that the impact of the pandemic restrictions on vulnerable children in YOIs “should be urgently addressed by reducing the numbers in custody or increasing staffing levels.”

IMPOSSIBLE TO DELIVER RELEASE SCHEMES

On 4 April 2020, as a result of the pandemic the Ministry of Justice said thousands of prisoners, including those most vulnerable, would be eligible for end of custody temporary release schemes. However, following the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody’s (IAPDC) review of hundreds of messages sent to prison radio stations across 55 prisons, the watchdog described the schemes as “hard to understand, difficult to explain and close to impossible to deliver”. One inmate’s message analysed by IAPDC simply read “no sign of early release, no staff have any clue if it’s even true but it’s on the news.”

It was understood young offenders would make up one per cent of the approximately 4,000 prisoners eligible. Human Rights Watch have described children in prisons globally as having been “left out” of the Covid-19 response. As of May 2020, only approximately 20 countries were known to have released children from detention facilities. In contrast, adult inmates had been released from at least 79 countries as a result of the pandemic. 

David Lammy, Shadow justice secretary, believes the emergency Covid-19 regime implemented in UK prisons is unsustainable. He has called for the government to urgently set out its exit strategy for the prison population. Lammy pointed to the recent spike in prison suicides, including one at a YOI, as a signal that the emergency restrictions are “becoming a threat to the welfare of prisoners.”

As the pandemic wages on but the easing of lockdown begins for many, the regime largely remains in place for those in YOIs. There are fears that, despite previously accepting restrictions as necessary in the prevention of the spread of the virus, the tolerance of young offenders will collapse as restrictions are relaxed in their communities at a pace conflicting with that of the institution they are in. Following the announcement that families and friends may be able to visit prisoners from July 2020, Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, described the plans as disingenuous and “no more than empty promises.”

Rebecca is due to begin the GDL in September, having graduated with a BA in History from Durham University. In the intervening years, she worked at a global asset management firm where, alongside her role, she helped lead their charitable efforts in the UK. Following her legal studies, she hopes to pursue a career at the Bar.

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