Blunkett pledge on juvenile prisoners
The home secretary David Blunkett has pledged that £16 million will be spent over the next two years on a network of four specialist units to hold teenage prisoners.
The Cabinet minister announced that all female inmates under the age of 18 in England and Wales will be housed in secure centres by 2006 and will no longer be detained alongside adult inmates.
Speaking during a visit to Holloway Prison, north London, Mr Blunkett said staff were doing a good job under difficult conditions but acknowledged that teenage prisoners needed to be cared for in specialist facilities with specialist staff.
“Moving juveniles to specialist units is a really positive step for young inmates and the prison service as a whole,” he said. “The staff at Holloway do a very good job in difficult circumstances with people under 18, but these prisoners have a particular vulnerability and should be cared for by specialist staff with facilities that address their unique education health and social needs.”
The home secretary made the announcement just a day after two reports, one from the chief inspector of prisons and one from the education watchdog, Ofsted, and the Youth Justice Board, denounced the practice of holding juvenile girls in adult prisons, claiming that the system was failing “this vulnerable and damaged group of young women”.
The reports found that around 90 per cent of young people wanted to stop offending, but a lack of support after release and failure to find work meant that many returned to crime.
There are currently 86 girls aged 15 to 17 held in adult prisons in England and Wales. The first girls will be moved out of Holloway in the next 12 months to a £3.5 million purpose-built new wing for teenage girls at Downview prison, Surrey. A further £16 million is to be spent on building four units across the country. The new units are expected to more closely resemble care homes than jail.
Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, welcomed the announcement, but added that the new units would not deal with all the multiple problems of girls in custody and stressed that girls should only be sent to prison where absolutely necessary.
Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, argued: “Specialist units for girls in adult prisons have been tried and failed not least because it is impossible to detach them totally from the rest of the prison.
“Even if physically separated from the adults, girls held in prison are still living in a punitive adult culture with high levels of self-harm, suicide, poor staff training and low staff ratios.”
