JUSTICE Responds to Call for Evidence: Children and Young Adults in the Secure Estate
In March 2026, JUSTICE submitted its response to the Call for Evidence for the Justice Committee’s inquiry into children and young adults in the secure estate.
Our submission raises serious concerns about the safety, suitability and effectiveness of the current children and young people secure estate. We highlight that many custodial settings remain unfit for the highly vulnerable children and young adults they hold. Conditions across the estate remain unsafe and insufficiently therapeutic, with persistent failures in access to education, healthcare and meaningful activity. These systemic deficiencies risk compounding trauma, entrenching inequality and undermining rehabilitation.
Our submission also raises particular concerns about the continued use of coercive practices, including force, segregation and solitary confinement, and their disproportionate impact on racialised children, Muslim children and those with mental health needs or neurodiversity. We also address the placement of children as young as ten in custody, arguing that this is incompatible with developmental evidence, international standards and children’s rights. The submission further examines the damaging “cliff‑edge” experienced by many children and young adults when they are transferred into the adult custodial estate, often without adequate preparation or support.
The submission calls for a fundamental shift towards a genuinely child‑first justice system. Our recommendations include:
- Diverting children and young adults away from custody wherever possible, supported by a national framework for diversion.
- Reforming youth sentencing to better reflect children and young adults’ maturity, needs and capacity for change, with custody reserved for the most serious cases.
- Raising the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales to 14.
- Ending the use of solitary confinement for children and young people.
- Publishing a clear, time‑bound strategy to close youth prisons and replace them with welfare‑ and education‑focused alternatives.
- Reforms to education, healthcare, oversight and accountability across the secure estate to ensure that children and young adults are safeguarded, supported and given a genuine opportunity to thrive.