The way in which we incarcerate young people and young adults who have been convicted of crimes should reflect their needs and what will give them and society the best chance of them being rehabilitated as well as the need for them to understand that they are being punished for the crimes concerned. At present some 6000 young adults aged 18-20 are imprisoned across England and Wales in 54 institutions. Only 7 of these are dedicated for the imprisonment of young people, the remaining 47 are combined adult and young offender prisons. The Government has begun a consultation with the proposal that all young adults should be held in adult prisons. More details including the consultation questionnaire can be found here, the consultation started on 7th November and will end on 19th December. One of the arguments that is being used to justify this change is to increase the prospect of these young adults people being placed in a prison close to their home. This improves the prospect of them being visited by family and friends which reduces the prospect of them becoming institutionalised.

Here in Sussex we have no young offender institutes and no women’s prisons which means that any young adults or women that are sent to prison from Sussex, will be held in a prison in Kent or Surrey or further afield. This will inevitably lead to a more significant separation between these women and young adults and their families. I am Trustee of a charity called Sussex Pathways that specialises in assisting people who leave prison and return to homes in Sussex. Volunteer mentors visit prisoners wishing to have support in the last few weeks of their sentence as they prepare for release. This weekly contact is then maintained for the first few months after release and our mentors assist the people concerned as they search for somewhere to live, provide assistance in registering with doctors and dentists, and where possible help them to gain training or employment placements. Because the only two prisons in Sussex are adult male prisons, most of the prisoners we help are adult male prisoners. It is much harder to make meaningful links with prisons in other Counties, due to the distances concerned. The prisons in Sussex are typical of the prisons in this country. The main prison is in Lewes is a stark austere place and I would hate to spend a single night in the prison, much less if I was only 18 or 19!

We do need to find ways of accommodating offenders close to their homes in most cases, however placing young adults in adult prisons is not the way to do this. This will mean 17 year old prisoners moving from youth prisons outside Sussex to Lewes Prison on their 18th Birthday. Some Birthday present! We need to review the way in which young people and young adults are imprisoned in this country with a more open starting point. We need to do as the consultation suggests, find better ways of rehabilitating young adults and this should include placing them closer to their normal home environment wherever possible. However putting them into an adult prison is the wrong way of trying to achieve this. This is a case of the means not justifying the ends. An adult prison is the wrong environment for young adults. We need some different ideas and a consultation that is high on aspirations. Paragraph 65 of the consultation document states:

 Under the Criminal Justice Act 1948, young adults who are 18 to 20 who have been securely remanded should be accommodated in prison. Once they are sentenced, they must be moved to a YOI. We would like to manage all young adults in a consistent and coherent way, regardless of whether they are on remand or have been sentenced.

I agree, we need some consistency, but how about being really bold and repealing the 1948 Act where it suggests that young adults on remand (ie people who are innocent) should be accommodated in a prison! How about creating some new facilities that will enable young people to be held near to their homes, rather than placing them in an adult prison. That would be a way of creating consistency. I hope that you will consider responding to this consultation. Lets take a risk that the Government will pay attention to it (sadly as I recently reported they do not always do so) and see if we can move our justice system forward  into the 21st Century, rather than dragging it back to the 19th Century.