A growing number of cases have been identified where unaccompanied children, many of whom appear to be trafficked, have been sent to HMP Elmley, Kent, and placed among foreign adult prisoners. According to the most recent inspection of Elmley, the block where foreign nationals are held also houses sex offenders.
For anyone who doesn’t want to read the article. The children are people who’s age has been disputed and the Home Office (Border Control) has declared them adults.
An organization working with age-disputed people says they identified 14 children that have been sent to an adult prison. The youngest is believed to be 14 years old. In total there are well over 1000 age disputed people.
Doesn’t make the situation much better but explains how it happened. Also important, sometimes the only crime committed was seeking asylum. And officially sex offenders (and similar criminals) aren’t supposed to be at that facility anymore. But they still are.
Question for people knowing the UK prison system:
Are there not juvenile facilities that cover the age range till 21 or something? It might be difficult to differentiate someone who is 17 from 19, but surely between 18 and 22 it must be possible.
They totally exist. Anyone between 15-21 can be placed in a Young Offender Institution. Anyone 18+ can be placed in an adult or young offender. And anyone over 21 has to be in an adult prison.
In this scenario they are all sent to the same prison that has a special block for “foreign prisoners”. This block isn’t supposed to hold certain types of prisoners, like sex offenders, but according to the article it does.
So there are lots of steps that are failing, why this is rather “shocking”.
Thank you for clearing it up. Here in Germany it is the same thing, were people 18-21 can either be put in juvenile or adult prison, depending on how mature they are deemed to be. So this is fucked up in the UK on so many levels.
Also IIRC (and as I understand) you’re sorted into a prison based on your age (and maturity) at the day you’re sentenced, so if you get sentenced to six years at age 17 you’re going to youth prison, and stay there for your whole sentence as maximum age as per wikipedia is 24.
They don’t need to be in detention at all.