Can prison ever be child-friendly? Ruth Smith visits the largest young offender institution in Europe to find out.

Read: Feature: Care in custody.

As I have just made the transition from working in Residential childcare to working in a generic Youth setting within the community I have began reflecting on my time working within the Residential childcare sector\(Including the Scottish secure estate) . It has saddened me the main reasons why I left the residential childcare sector was a fear of allegations being made by the client group and also dissatisfaction in the quality of crisis intervention methods available to frontline staff? My first experience of working with young people was in a secure unit in Scotland\(Kerelaw). My reasons for applying were in a hope of making a real difference in these young peoples lives. After moving through out the sector I finally ended up working in a Residential open School for young men between the ages of 14 to 18.These young people generally make the transition from here to secure then to prison. As I regularly pointed out to the Headmaster of the school "The young people we serve and society as a whole are being badly let down by the service we provide within residential childcare"Quite surprisingly the Headmaster actually agreed in principle with my comment. Before I continue with my constructive rant I would like to point out that I am wholly child centred and I believe child protection procedures shouldn't be compromised. The problem is staff members have very little protection. We as frontline workers rell'y on excellent supervision and guidance from middle management. Unfortunately excellent management is very thin on the ground.A direct result of this is staff members failing to challenge young people which then leads to faulse confidences developing amongst the client group. On returning to society the young people are unprepared and begin to offend. In thinking about value for tax payers money and social justice for our young people, the cost of a residential bed for a young person is around £2500 per week this rises with specialist units such as secure units charging up to £5000 pounds per week. This is more than top boarding schools charge! It's big business. The residential childcare sector is an arena where young people go into crisis on a daily basis and as workers we are left to manage these outbursts. In helping us do this there are many types of "Safe" holding methods out there. The one I have used through out my career has been "therapeutic crisis intervention" some of the de-escalation parts of the method are very good but the safe hold in itself is unfit for purpose. In my opinion this needs to be addressed and quickly.Is it time to adopt C&R? or would this be a step back in the wrong direction? I would like to point out that every child has the right to make a complaint and I think it is fantastic that there are advocacy support out there in helping young people do this. When a young person makes a complaint it is good practice that the worker is suspended as a precaution. This is to allow an investigation to be carried out. These can take anything from a number of days to a number of months. What can workers do to keep safe but at the same time do their job by addressing challenging behaviour etc? I have noticed that workers are now operating in a climate of fear and as a result are taking a backward step. Recently children rioted at a secure unit outside Glasgow causing £250.000 pounds worth of damage. Was this because staff were frightened about using their training or were they just not trained well enough? The question is what's the alternative? And also suspensions and sackings are a very real possibility. How can we as workers minimise the risk? How do we improve this vital sector where the workers are supposed to be the pro social role models and change agents. I would be interested in anyone's comments and slant on the contents of this letter.

 Many Thanks, Joe Gibb

I currently work within a secure setting in a yoi as a yot officer, and I believe that from the article above, it makes it sound as though prisons are all awful except for the above mentioned. Only today did one young person in custody say to me, "I'm not upset here at all:i feel safe, I get staff support and it's like a youth club in here, I think it should be so much harder, when I am released next week I am not scared to come back again, it really isn't bad at all." Don't we want prison to act as a 'last resort' deterrent to finally break the cycle of offending for each and every young person? It shouldn't be too great, or they will not be afraid to come back again/ reoffend. I 100% believe that each young person should be safeguarded from themselves, one another and staff. However the question I ask is, "Is giving every young person a comfy association area, a tv and playstation in their room, a cd player which can go as loud as they like, money from the prison and hardly any limitation on the amount of time with their 'friends' really the best way to help to cut down youth crime?" In my opinion, the life in prison for some young people is better than their life outsides: which is heartbreaking to hear a 15-17 year old say. So shouldn't we be spending some more time and effort on improving lives outside with their family/ carers to ensure they don't come to these places in the first place? I love my job, I get to feel I am making a difference, and I get a lot more gratitude than off young people in the community, but I really wish the young people didn't go to jail in the first place: having better lives outside, and certainly not feeling better in custody than outside.. Sorry for the big rant... My main point is, custody should have 'human rights' and ensure all five points of the 'Every Child Matters' campaign are worked towards, however it should be the minimum, including services offering support to change, but not luxuries which couldn't be offered outside.. Each prisoner should leave at release, hating the walls and never EVER wanting to come back.. And I wish each and everyone could say this with their head held high, proud of what they have achieved, but not having enjoyed themselves. Thank you..