Government no longer places girls in Young Offender Institutions
Details
The government has immediately implemented the first recommendation of Susannah Hancock’s independent review into girls in the Children and Young People Secure Estate (CYPSE): girls will no longer be placed in Young Offender Institutions.
This is a positive step to address some of the issues of treatment and care of girls in custody, but further recommendations from the independent review should be considered as soon as possible.
The independent review into placements and care for girls in the CYPSE
Girls make up less than 2% of the children in the CYPSE currently. Despite the small number of girls in custody, the long-standing issue of appropriate placements for girls has not been resolved.
In March 2025, Susannah Hancock published her report following an independent review into placement and care for girls in the CYPSE.
The review identified several key themes relating to girls in custody:
- Girls entering the youth justice system are vulnerable and have complex needs. They have likely experienced trauma, physical abuse, sexual abuse and/or victimisation. Custodial settings can therefore retraumatise girls.
- Girls often experience mental health challenges resulting from trauma and are involved in more than half the self-harm incidents across the youth estate in England and Wales.
- Currently, there is inadequate trauma-informed care for girls and a lack of focus on girl-specific physical health issues that can often impact behaviour and wellbeing.
- Black, Brown and Racialised girls and girls with other protected characteristics experience discrimination and disadvantage in the youth justice system as compared to white girls.
- There is a lack of specialised support in the community, in particular around health and welfare. This is significant given the connection between girls’ involvement in the care system and likelihood of offending.
Following the closure of Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre in 2021, girls were placed into Wetherby Young Offender Institution. This was to be a temporary measure; however Young Offender Institutions have remained a custodial option for girls.
Taking the themes relating to girls in custody into account and the current placements available within the CYPSE, the independent review made recommendations about the most appropriate placement and care for girls in the CYPSE going forward. The review’s key recommendations are:
- To end the use of Young Offender Institutions for girls with immediate effect.
- To end the use of Secure Training Centres for girls by 2029.
- Government policy should move to a position where all girls on remand or sentenced should be placed in Secure Children’s Homes or a Secure School, as these are the most appropriate placements for girls given their needs.
- To set up a ‘Girls Consortia’ between the Youth Custody Service, Secure Children’s Homes, Secure School and national bodies including the Department for Education. The consortia should work together to coordinate and provide appropriate placements for all girls.
- Establishing an evidence-based and gender-responsive pathway for girls to define the trauma-informed and gender-responsive support and services that girls in the CYPSE need. This should include training for professionals working with girls in secure environments.
- The establishment of a Girls Justice Strategic Board to oversee the development and delivery of a strategy for girls across the youth justice system, including girls in the community and in the secure estate.
- In the long term, develop a new ‘community secure’ provision to deliver change for all children in secure settings, including designation of alternative community provision such as multi-dimensional intensive fostering placements.
The government has now acted on the first recommendation and has announced that girls will no longer be placed in Young Offender Institutions with immediate effect. The government stated that this is a first step in improving the support for girls and ensuring girls are placed in settings more suited to their needs such as Secure Schools or Secure Children’s Homes.
Commentary
The government’s step to immediately cease placing girls in Young Offender Institutions is to be applauded. This is one step in the right direction towards appropriate placement and treatment of girls in custody.
However, it is important to go further and implement the wider recommendations in the independent review as soon as possible. This includes accelerating the timetable to end the use of Secure Training Centres for girls and introducing the ‘Girls Consortia’. It is imperative that girls in custody receive appropriate placements and gender- and trauma-informed support, particularly given their additional needs and vulnerabilities.
Finally, the long-term vision of the report to move towards a ‘community secure’ provision supports custody to only be used as a last resort for girls and is a welcome vision for children in secure settings more widely. It is particularly positive to see this report’s call for developments in alternative community options such as intensive fostering placements, since the current lack of availability in this area is surely not helping reduce the number of children remanded to youth detention accommodation and sentenced to custody.