Safety Incidents in the Children and Young People Secure Estate: Update to March 2026

23rd September 2026

The Ministry of Justice published new data on safety incidents in the Children and Young People Secure Estate (CYPSE), titled Safety in the Children and Young People Secure Estate: Update to March 2026.

The data covers a 12-month period, between April 2025 and March 2026, capturing statistics on safety incidents, including assault, self-harm, use of force, separation and death within the CYPSE. The data covers the following sectors of the CYPSE: Young Offender Institutions (YOIs), a Secure Training Centre (STC), and Secure Children’s Homes (SCHs).

Details

Some noteworthy statistical figures are the following:

  1. Average population in the relevant sectors showed a decrease of around 13% (to 454.3 children). 
  2. Assaults – there were 1,926 incidents in total (110 being serious assault cases), with 423.9 per 100 children, marking an increase of 11%. The serious assault rate was the highest in YOIs (26.6 per 100 children).
  3. Self-harm - there were 1,474 self-harm incidents in total, with 324.4 per 100 children, showing a decrease of 1%. The rate of different children self-harming increased by ~9%, to 48.6 per 100 children. 
  4. Use of force - there were 4,329 use of force incidents in total, with a rate of 952.8 per 100 children, showing an increase of 5%. The rate of using wrist restraints was highest in YOIs at 20.7% of cases.
  5. Separations - when children are asked to return to their room or a different location, and remain there without mixing with other children. Separations in each of SCHs, STC and YOIs operate under different rules, and should not be compared.
  6. SCHs - there were 402 separations in total, with a rate of 489.7 per 100 children, showing a decrease of 33%. The average duration per day for a separated child was 2 hours and 48 minutes, a decrease of 29%. 
  7. YOIs - there were 948 separations in total, with a rate of 303.4 per 100 children, which shows an increase of 4%.The average duration of an incident was 13.33 days, a decrease of 2%.
  8. STC - there were 269 separation incidents in total, with a rate of 449.7 per 100 children, which remained similar to the previous period’s rate. The average duration per day for a separated child was 2 hours and 37 minutes, an increase of 11%.
  9. Deaths - no deaths occurred during the relevant period.

Comment

Practitioners could consider using these datapoints and the implicated safety incident risks to support arguments against imposing custodial sentences for children. Additionally, even if a custodial sentence is unavoidable, the data could support that smaller, therapeutic custodial environments should be preferred over YOIs and larger institutions for certain children.

  1. The data indicates that children who are put into custody continue to face significant safety risks, including (i) assault incident rates of 400+ cases per 100 children, (ii) self-harm incident rates of 300+ cases per 100 children, and (iii) use of force incident rates of 900+ cases per 100 children. 
  2. Furthermore, the data shows that YOIs can present particular safety concerns in the following respects: (i) YOIs had the highest serious assault incident rates, (ii) the average time spent by a separated child in a YOI is over 13 days, and (iii) YOIs had the highest rates of use of force incidents involving wrist-restraints.

Further information on the data can be found here.