A young offender institution has been identified as the most violent prison in the country, with teenage inmates refusing family visits to keep their relatives away from danger, a watchdog has found.
HMYOI Feltham A in west London, which holds 84 boys aged 15 to 18, registered 320 incidents of disorder in the year to March, up 300% on the previous 12 months, said the chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor.
A report released on Tuesday said prison authorities found 343 weapons during the year, compared with 122 the year before. The use of force by staff, usually in response to violence, rose by 68%.
Recorded rates of violence in the year leading up to March 2024 had been “higher than any other establishment in England and Wales”, the report said. There had been 410 incidents of violence, a substantial increase on the 182 in the 12 months before the last inspection.
The report comes as the Prison Service in England and Wales comes under intense scrutiny. On Friday the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced that thousands of prisoners would be released early from September because of an overcrowding crisis in adult jails.
Inspectors found that children held in Feltham A booked fewer than half of the allocated visitor sessions to meet their relatives. “In our interviews, some children said they did not want their families to visit because of the risk of violence breaking out in front of them,” the report said.
Taylor noted that that the prison achieved “healthy” test scores in a 2022 inspection. “It was disappointing to return to find there had been a deterioration in standards, with levels of violence now the highest of any prison in the country,” he said.
The inspectors visited the facility this March. The report said they found hardworking, dedicated staff doing their best, but that children were not safe enough, were locked in their cells for too long and the provision of education was inadequate.
The use of segregation was found to have increased significantly, the inspectors said, with seven children found to have been segregated for more than 50 days and two for more 100 days.
Inspectors raised concerns about children’s access to education, with the use of 266 keep-apart instructions to stop children who had fought from coming in to contact with each other. These meant that rather than being placed in lessons with children who had similar abilities and interests, boys were allocated to classes based on who they could mix with without fighting, the report said.
Taylor said the immediate crisis of overcrowding in jails should begin to ease soon as long as there were no further crises in the summer.
Speaking to the Guardian in London’s Pentonville prison, where he formally opened a scheme to train prisoners as bicycle mechanics, Taylor said there remained wider problems of reoffending and of many having not enough to do while serving sentences.
“I hope that at least the immediate pressure that somebody sentenced to custody can’t get into custody, the worry that things will fall over, I think what’s encouraging is that we’ve moved away from that, or with any luck we will have assuming we get through the summer without any difficulties,” he said.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The criminal justice system is in crisis and as this report clearly shows, this is placing great strain on the youth estate.
“As the chief inspector recognises in his report, the governor and frontline staff are now making every effort to drive improvements and reduce violence. But we know there is much more to do and we are committed to increasing the support these children need to turn their lives around.”
