This AYJ comment responds to a series of recent youth justice developments, including the Youth Justice Statistics 2024–25, the IMB’s annual report on HMYOI Feltham, and the Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s youth custody recommendations. It recognises continued reductions in the number of children entering the system and in custody, while raising concerns about unsafe conditions and calling for greater urgency, ambition and transparency in reform.

This AYJ comment responds to the government’s policy statement A Modern Youth Justice System: Foundations Fit for the Future. It welcomes signs of progress while setting out the need for ambitious reform to make custody a genuine last resort, reduce unnecessary remand, and move away from unsafe custodial environments towards child-centred approaches.

This AYJ comment responds to the High Court ruling on the use of PAVA spray in YOIs. It sets out our deep disappointment at the decision and reiterates the urgent need to move away from harmful, punitive responses towards small, therapeutic forms of custody, used only as a last resort.

This AYJ comment piece looks at the Justice Committee’s Ending the cycle of reoffending - part one: rehabilitation in Prisons report. In the short term, we see further accountability on these issues as a welcome first step. In the long term, the best way to meet the needs of children and support desistance is to ensure that no child is sentenced or remanded to custody unless it is an absolute last resort and for the shortest appropriate period.

This AYJ comment piece welcomes the government’s announcement of a dedicated sentencing review for children and calls for the government to take meaningful steps towards meeting children’s distinct needs. This includes ensuring that custody is only ever used as a last resort.

The government’s response to the Hancock Review sets out initial commitments but lacks long-term ambition to ensure the needs of girls in custody are met

In our latest comment, we respond to the inspection of HMYOI Feltham A, where violence remains the highest of any prison, and children face long lock-ups and disrupted education. Despite small improvements at the institution, we warn that these findings reflect a wider crisis in safety across the youth estate.

This blog, in conversation with a youth worker for The Children’s Society (TCS) in Nottinghamshire, examines how TCS helps children and young adults affected by child criminal exploitation.

In our latest comment, we respond to the inspection of HMYOI Feltham A, where violence remains the highest of any prison, and children face long lock-ups and disrupted education. Despite small improvements at the institution, we warn that these findings reflect a wider crisis in safety across the youth estate.

AYJ comment on removal of children from Oasis Restore secure school, highlighting serious safety failings and warning against transfers to unsafe YOIs and STCs, reiterating calls for custody to be a last resort and delivered only in small, local, welfare-based settings with high standards of care and safety.

AYJ comment on urgent notification for Oakhill STC and inspection of HMYOI Werrington, warning of institutional failure across the youth secure estate and calling for STCs and YOIs to be replaced with small, local, Child First environments rooted in care, wellbeing and safety.

In this blog, we speak to Zahbia Yousuf at Maslaha — a grassroots organisation new to AYJ membership. Maslaha work to challenge the root causes of Islamophobia. Zahbia reflects on how the education system fails to meet the needs of racialised young people, the importance of creative, culturally responsive spaces, and why change must be shaped by those most affected.

AYJ comment on HMI Prisons’ thematic report Building trust, calls for the closure of YOIs highlighting Secure Children’s Homes provide the best environment for building relationships that support children in custody’s wellbeing and safety and enable them to fulfil their potential.

The AYJ shares our position on the recent Independent Sentencing Review by David Gauke. We ask that the Government now considers how best to protect children from the harms of imprisonment. 

AYJ CEO, Jess Mullen, writes to update our members and partners — reflecting on what we’ve been working on together so far this year and looking ahead to what’s coming up next.

In this blog, Gess Aird, the CEO of Kinetic Youth speaks to the rich history of youth work in the UK and outlines how those methodologies inform the important work Kinetic do with children and young people caught up in the secure estate.

In this blog, Laura Janes, from AYJ member the Youth Practitioners’ Association, asks what it will take to create a well-resourced secure estate that caters to the distinct needs of children and young adults.

The AYJ shares our position after the government recently stated vulnerable girls sentenced to youth custody will no longer be placed in Young Offender Institutions (YOIs).

In this analysis piece, John Drew CBE, AYJ board member and former CEO of the YJB, reflects on the decision to change the age young people transition to the adult estate from 18 to 19.

AYJ comment on HMI Prisons’ reports Children in Custody 2023-24 and Feltham A YOI Independent Review of Progress