PRT comment: HMYOI Cookham Wood

Reacting to the announcement that HMYOI Cookham Wood is to be transferred from the youth estate and become an adult prison, Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“It is sad to see that the government has resorted to political spin in its statement announcing the closure of HMYOI Cookham Wood as a children’s prison. The prison has been in steady decline for six years—as independent inspections clearly show. There is no mention in the government’s statement of the continuing difficulties in filling prison officer posts, or of the apparent fact that one in four staff resigned from the prison in the last six months. No amount of hard work by successive governors has been able to reverse this decline.

“With children at Cookham Wood spending more than 19 hours each day in their cells, the bright references in the government’s statement of plans to ‘transform’ custody for children feel particularly empty. Decanting a growing number of young adults into children’s prisons has only made matters worse.

“What is needed urgently is a complete rethink in the strategy for imprisoning children; action to deliver on the government’s seven year old commitment to close Young Offender Institutions and the remaining Secure Training Centre; and a fresh investment of imagination and cash to turn things around—not just at Cookham Wood but across all other English YOIs.”