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.
Also important, sometimes the only crime committed was seeking asylum
They don’t need to be in detention at all.
A number of Home Office decisions that meant children were sent to an adult prison have already been overturned after detailed assessments by independent or local authority specialists.
New data obtained by the Observer confirms that hundreds of asylum-seeker children are being wrongly treated as adults by the Home Office. According to data from dozens of councils, more than half of the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who undergo Home Office age assessments on arriving into the UK are later confirmed to be children.
The cruelty is the point. Tories truly are monstrous.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
She said: “These children are locked down in their cells, not knowing who to call for help, prevented from adequately accessing legal advice and from challenging the arbitrary decision made about their ages by immigration officials upon arrival in the UK.
On Thursday, an age-disputed child was identified in Folkestone magistrates court bound for prison, and there were reports that another minor was in police custody in Margate and also expected to be sent to Elmley.
The children sent to Elmley were declared adults by the Home Office following what many experts describe as a “cursory and arbitrary” age assessment by officials, often conducted within hours of them reaching the UK by small boat.
A number of Home Office decisions that meant children were sent to an adult prison have already been overturned after detailed assessments by independent or local authority specialists.
Data from 55 councils under freedom of information laws shows that of 1,416 age assessments carried out over the five years to April 2023 by specialist social workers on age-disputed asylum seekers, 809 were found to be children.
Human Rights Network staff attending hearings at Folkestone magistrates court have identified them by noticing a young person contesting the date of birth given to them by immigration officials upon arrival in the UK.
The original article contains 1,003 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Nobody will think of the children now that they can’t make invasive surveillance laws based on it? This is not the UK the tories want me to know.
Wait, am I understanding correctly? They’re imprisoning children for commiting no crime? That seems… pretty barbaric.
Oh no no no, they’re not just putting these kids in jail. They’re putting the kids in jail with sex offenders.