Scaffolding the Cliff Edge: what should custody look like for young adults?
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. This blog is the latest in a series of think pieces in support of Adultifying Youth Custody: Learning lessons on transition to adulthood from the use of youth custody for young adults, part of our wider project exploring transitions.
Attempting to sketch out how to best lock up young adults feels counter-intuitive. I have spent much of my professional career dealing with the adverse experiences of prison on young adults or trying to help them overcome the harms of detention and work towards release.
Yet, if young adults are to be detained, and as of March 2024 around 13% of people in prison were aged 18 to 25, then it is important that their distinct needs are not overlooked. The debate about where young adults should be placed is long-standing and policy experts have considered a range of different options in detail (see, for example, Rob Allen’s report for T2A from 2016). The prison system continues to distinguish between those under and over 21 with a distinct set of rules for each cohort, although the last thematic review of young adults by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons in 2021 found that only 6% of young adults were held in the three designated young adult prisons (since then one of the three, Aylesbury, is no longer designated for young adults). More recently, between November 2022 and October 2024, as a new briefing by Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ) charts, there was a policy of keeping 18 year olds in children’s prisons.
“The prison system continues to distinguish between those under and over 21 with a distinct set of rules for each cohort, although the last thematic review of young adults by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons in 2021 found that only 6% of young adults were held in the three designated young adult prisons.”
As the briefing says: “Young people transferring from youth to adult custody face a frightening cliff edge, and getting the transition right is critical to ensuring the safety, wellbeing, and rehabilitation of young people entering adulthood.”
The report outlines the changes young adults experience when they move to the 18 plus estate. Some of these changes are structural: for example, “Establishments are much bigger, staffing ratios are lower, and there are far fewer resources.” Others concern the quality of provision, management and contact with the outside world: for example young adults in adult prisons will experience “considerably different supervision, changes in healthcare provision, family contact and visits, and increased severity of restraint, searching, adjudication and behaviour management.”
“Young adults in adult prisons will experience considerably different supervision (to children), changes in healthcare, family contact, and increased severity of restraint and behaviour management.”
So should young adults, who often retain the vulnerabilities of childhood, be permitted to remain in the children’s estate as envisaged by the UNCRC general comment on the child justice system?
As the AYJ report charts, this is exactly what happened in recent years, resulting in the number of 18 years olds in the children’s secure estate trebling and accounting for well over a third of the population in some children’s prisons. At the same time conditions in the children’s estate worsened considerably. The HMIP annual report for 2023/24 reported declining safety, frontline staffing shortages, and very high levels of violence.
In my own view and experience, there is no logical reason why a skilled and well-resourced children’s secure estate cannot, where appropriate, accommodate those who turn 18. I have known a number of young adults to remain in children’s establishments for significant periods of time without there being a deterioration in conditions or a detriment to children under 18. Secure Children’s Homes may accommodate adults provided that the home remains ‘wholly or mainly for children’ as required by section 1 of the Care Standards 2000 Act: no such limit was placed on Young Offenders Institutions. Further, the change in the demographics within establishments appears not to have been planned in such a way as to ensure the needs of every child and young adult could be appropriately met.
“In my own view and experience, there is no logical reason why a skilled and well-resourced children’s secure estate cannot, where appropriate, accommodate those who turn 18.”
It is clear that the recent change in policy, which was triggered by the capacity crisis in adult prisons, raised a number of concerns. Therefore, the better question is how the terrifying effects of the cliff-edge of turning 18 be mitigated or scaffolded to minimise the harm.
The AYJ briefing provides insights from both experts and young people about the key characteristics for custody for young adults that would better meet their needs, address the stark difference between youth and adult custody, and fill the gap in provision for young adults.
The overwhelming takeaway message is that young adults’ distinct needs must be recognised and met, wherever they are placed.
This may well require adaptations to the structures of custody: for example, smaller units are likely to be better suited to enabling young adults in custody to be treated according to their age, circumstances and needs. It may also mean significant changes to provision, management and contact with the outside world: for example, specialist staff who understand the needs of young adults, support with contact with professionals in the outside world and the ability to continue age-appropriate education.
“The overwhelming takeaway message is that young adults’ distinct needs must be recognised and met, wherever they are placed.”
The evidence, as assembled by T2A over the years is clear: young adults remain at a critical stage of development and maturation, the decision-making part of their brains continuing to change rapidly. As such, wherever they are, they will need to be appropriately supported. There is absolutely no reason why young adults should not continue to benefit from multidisciplinary professional meetings or be able to continue with GCSEs, A-levels or degree level education, based on an individual learning plan that can be properly resourced. The laws concerning additional special educational support for young adults in the community should be carried across to young adults in custody. All young adults should be afforded much more than the “adult” yearly and cursory sentence planning meetings. They should have quarterly multidisciplinary meetings – something that the Government has acknowledged should be provided now for all adults who were given the equivalent of IPP sentences as children.
“There is absolutely no reason why young adults should not continue to benefit from multidisciplinary professional meetings or be able to continue with GCSEs, A-levels or degree level education, based on an individual learning plan that can be properly resourced.”
These are all changes that will, in my view, help young adults to work towards safe and positive futures. Young adults should, of course, be in the least restrictive environment possible which would mean better use of open conditions for young adults, with enhanced support there to enable them to benefit from community leave. Additional efforts should be made to secure their earliest possible release into the community with the right support.
If there is neither the appetite nor the resource to develop specialist buildings for young adults, this kind of supporting “scaffolding” is essential to mitigate the harms of detention during this critical stage of development.