YOUTH JAIL BRANDED BRITAIN’S MOST VIOLENT AFTER 187 ASSAULTS IN SIX MONTHS
31 Werrington youngsters taken to hospital
A YOUNG offender institution has been branded the most violent prison in England – with nearly 200 assaults recorded in just six months.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons has raised concerns over HMYOI Werrington after an unannounced inspection. Both ‘safety and purposeful activity’ were judged poor.
In the six months before the January inspection there were 105 assaults among children and 82 assaults on staff – with 31 youngsters ending up in hospital. There were 23 assaults for every 10 children, more than at any other prison in England and Wales.
Nearly 400 weapons were found over a 12-month period. Inmates told inspectors they carried weapons as they were not confident staff could keep them safe.
Inspectors found Werrington’s most common way of tackling violence was the creation of ‘keep apart’ lists aimed at separating individuals and groups. There were 263 such non-associations among the population of 64 inmates. The report said this ‘ineffective and harmful arrangement’ had ‘come to dominate life in Werrington’.
The ‘keep apart’ lists meant that children were allocated to learning not on the basis of need, but merely on which youngsters could or could not mix at any one point – a ‘corrosive’ approach that ‘completely undermined the purpose of the institution’.
It was found Werrington had been making ‘significant progress’ at reducing self-harm, but perceptions of safety were still worse than at any other YOI, with nearly 40 per cent of children saying they felt unsafe at some point during their stay.
Although provision of care had dropped from ‘good’ to ‘reasonably good’, inspectors found some encouraging signs. Health services were child-centred and there was evidence of learning and change following incidents and audits.
Inspectors also welcomed innovative approaches towards sexual health, with individuals being screened after 14 days, ensuring that for new arrivals the long-term effects of unrecognised and untreated disease at reception were minimised.
But overall they felt it was a disappointing visit, with a deterioration in three of the four health prison assessments.
Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, said: “We were left with the sense that Werrington had lost its way and needed to rediscover a sense of purpose. The governor had set out a series of priorities for the establishment, but it was clear to us that more needed to be done to ensure staff were fully committed to these priorities and that plans were delivered.”
Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, described the report as ‘horrifying, and said it demonstrated that prison was no place for children’.
She said: “This is one of the most horrifying inspection reports that the Howard League has seen. It is a 69page document of failure that could be summarised in just seven words prison is no place for a child.
“Instead of being kept safe, boys as young as 15 are living in fear from violence and abuse in Werrington – and the prison’s response has made matters worse.
“Rather than solving problems, staff have relied on trying to keep children apart. It does not appear to have made the jail any less toxic, and the boys have been denied access to education that might help to guide them away from crime.
“Werrington was barely half-full when the inspectors arrived and, even then, the children were in danger. It is time for ministers to act.”