AYJ Statement: Children in Custody Are Being Failed – Minor Improvements Cannot Mask Systemic Harm
Children’s rights, safeguarding and welfare are still not being upheld in youth custody. The latest HMI Prisons Children in custody 2025-26 report show a familiar, damning picture of a system that continues to expose vulnerable children to harm, denies them education and development, and fails to provide even basic care. As HM Inspectorate of Prisons states standards remain “woeful” across the youth estate with children locked behind doors for up to 19 hours a day.
Violence remains pervasive. Children described daily fights, group assaults and routine weapon-carrying. Feltham recorded over 400 assaults in a year, including 126 involving weapons. Staff shortages and inconsistent behaviour management leave children feeling unsafe and unsupported. Of the children surveyed, 39% had felt unsafe at some point. Children said that feeling unsafe in custody was inevitable and was linked to the unpredictability of the environment and observing other children fighting and carrying weapons. They also said that high levels of force and disrespectful behaviour from staff contributed to feelings of unsafety.
The experience of children with disabilities and neurodivergence is particularly alarming. Half reported feeling unsafe, nearly two-thirds had suffered verbal abuse, and one in six had their belongings stolen. These children—disproportionately White and from Traveller communities, and coping primarily with learning difficulties, neurodivergence, or mental health needs—are bearing the brunt of an environment unable to meet even their most basic needs.
Children continue to spend extreme periods behind their doors, with boys at Feltham and Werrington unlocked for less than four hours a day. Isolation at this scale is harmful and incompatible with rehabilitation. Minor improvements at Werrington and Wetherby do not change this bleak overall picture.
Education remains deeply inadequate. Every Young Offender Institution (YOI) except Parc was judged ‘inadequate’, and 16% of children received no education, work or offending behaviour intervention. Keep-apart lists restrict access to classrooms, disproportionately affecting those with the highest needs.
Relationships between staff and children are weak. Only half of children felt cared for, and one in three had no adult they could turn to for help. These institutions are not designed around children’s needs and cannot meet them.
These repeated inspection findings prove that large custodial institutions are structurally incapable of keeping children safe. Pockets of progress are fragile and overshadowed by systemic failure. The urgent notification at Oakhill shows how quickly conditions can deteriorate.
Urgent, structural reform is required. The government must set out a clear, binding timetable and plan to close YOIs and the remaining Secure Training Centre and transition to small, local, welfare-led units such as secure children’s homes. Children deserve safety, education, care and hope — not confinement, fear and neglect.
Jess Mullen, CEO, Alliance for Youth Justice
“Every year, HMIP reports tell the same story: youth custody is unsafe, re-traumatising, and fundamentally broken. Treating these harrowing findings as an annual formality is unacceptable, inaction is a political choice that leaves vulnerable children exposed to violence and neglect every single day.
Incremental tweaks leading to minor improvements in a handful of establishments cannot disguise the reality: large custodial institutions are fundamentally unfit for purpose. The Ministry of Justice’s forthcoming Youth Custody Transformation Plan must deliver a timeline for a decisive shift away from YOIs and STCs, ensuring that custody is only used for children as an absolute last resort and when it is children are accommodated in small, therapeutic, child-centred settings that can actually meet their needs.”