Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
Inspectors have condemned a children’s prison in Yorkshire where male prison guards stripped a suicidal teenage girl who was self-harming on two occasions with no female officer present, saying “this is simply not acceptable.” When prison inspectors went into Wetherby Young Offenders Institution in December, the average time spent out of cell was between three and five hours per day, although some children were kept locked in their cells for 23.5 hours. In a throwback to Victorian times, a third of child prisoners told His Majesty’s Inspectors of Prisons that they were “cold” as heating was broken and windows could not be closed. Angus Jones, the lead inspector, told Tortoise this was “unforgivable”.