AYJ Response: Trowler Review into youth custody safeguarding

AYJ welcomes the safeguarding review led by Isabelle Trowler and the Government’s acceptance of all 34 recommendations. We particularly welcome the proposal that all children in custody should have looked after status. This reflects AYJ’s long held view that children deprived of their liberty require the highest level of protection.

The review found that safeguarding responses in some establishments are “generally robust” when specialist staff are involved, demonstrating that good practice is possible when expertise and leadership are present.

However, it also confirms what children, families and practitioners have been saying for years, that safeguarding in youth custody is not working. The report identifies widespread absence of safeguarding expertise within establishments, inconsistent practice, and a lack of professional curiosity about children’s experiences. Critical safeguarding functions such as risk assessment, information sharing, and responding to disclosures are fragmented, poorly understood, or simply not happening. The review describes a system where basic protections routinely fail, where children’s voices are not heard, and where serious incidents are neither prevented nor learned from.

Conditions in youth custody remain unsafe, harmful and fundamentally unsuitable for children. Levels of violence, self harm, staff shortages and keep apart policies resulting in isolation show institutions cannot meet even minimum safeguarding standards. The review highlights entrenched cultural and structural problems including weak governance, inadequate training, and an over reliance on security driven approaches rather than child protection.

AYJ has consistently argued that custody must only ever be used as a true last resort, for the shortest possible time, and that Youth Offender Institutions (YOIs) and the last remaining Secure Training Cnetre should be closed. They cannot provide the safety, care or trauma informed environment children need.

Implementing the reviews recommendations must be the beginning of a wider shift towards small, child centred, welfare led alternatives rooted in care, relationships and specialist safeguarding expertise. Safeguarding reforms will only be meaningful if they sit within a broader commitment to radically reducing the use of custody and investing in community based provision that keeps children safe, connected and able to build positive futures.

Jess Mullen, Chief Executive Officer, Alliance for Youth Justice, said:

“We welcome the Trowler Review and the Government’s acceptance of all 34 recommendations — including the vital move to give children in custody looked after status. Now those commitments must be turned into urgent action: embed specialist safeguarding across the estate, close large YOIs and invest in smaller, community, trauma informed alternatives like Secure Children’s Homes.”