Failed by the system
Poorer outcomes for young people in jail risks reoffending
LESS than half of young prisoners think their experience in jail has made them less likely to offend again. The Prison Service has failed to deal effectively with young adult prisoners for more than a decade, missing opportunities to help them rehabilitate and putting communities at risk from reoffending, according to HM Chief Inspector of Prisons.
Chief Inspector Charlie Taylor warned that outcomes would remain poor for young adults under 25 and for society unless HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) urgently addressed the current “haphazard” approach to more than 15,000 young adult prisoners.
An HMI Prisons’ prisoner survey found 46% of prisoners aged 18 to 25 said their experience in their current prison had made them less likely to offend in the future.
Mr Taylor said: “This missed opportunity to help young adult prisoners to improve their skills and reduce reoffending rates has consequences for society when they are released.
“In general, the outcomes are poor for young adults when compared with those for older prisoners (those aged over 25).
“Young adults have worse relationships with staff, are less likely to be motivated by the behaviour management schemes and are far more likely to be involved in violent incidents. “They are also more likely to face adjudications (prison discipline processes), to be placed on the basic regime and to self-harm.
“They report more negatively on day-to-day life, including relationships with staff, the quality of the food and the cleanliness of their wing. In addition, young adults have worse attendance at education and work.
“Black and minority ethnic prisoners are significantly overrepresented in the young adult prison population, and the perceptions of treatment among this group are particularly poor.”
The vast majority of prisoners aged between 18 and 25 are held in adult prisons - the report said: “Young adults were placed haphazardly in a range of different types of establishment without considering their needs.”
It also cites evidence that maturation in young adults is a slow process and may not be achieved until their mid-to-late 20s.
The report recommends young adults’ needs and maturity are assessed on entering the prison system, they are then placed in establishments that best suit their needs, and prisons work on building positive, trusting relationships between staff and young adults and developing suitable education, skills and work provision.
Lisa Smitherman, Director of Justice at Catch-22, which works with young people and adults providing intervention and rehabilitation services in prison and in the community, said: “Young people’s ability to desist from crime is dependent on their engagement with a ‘hook-forchange’ – whether that’s a prosocial relationship, confidence in their ability to desist, or understanding attainable employment or educational opportunities.
“We must see more intervention for young people, focussed on building trusted relationships with adults who can offer that hook.”
She said education or training programmes in prisons needed to address individual needs, which wasn’t necessarily the case - for example, education aims to replicate mainstream delivery, even though many young prisoners have previously been excluded from school.