The philosophy, organisation and development of custody of juveniles (those aged 17 and under) has been so different from adult prisons that it requires a separate account. This chapter summarises the development of private provision and changes over the period, and assesses the extent of competition between public and private sectors.

Background

At the start of the 1990s, custody for juveniles overlapped with the adult prison system, but differed from it in many ways. Instead of a highly centralised system run by the Home Office, it was spread between two government departments, and local authorities who were both providers and customers; its purposes were not solely penal, but primarily welfare and protection; and numbers in custody had not risen in the preceding decade, but fallen precipitously.

There were at that time three types of secure accommodation for juveniles:

• 1. Local authority secure children's homes (SCHs): very small (typically around a dozen children), very intensively staffed and very costly, run primarily by local authorities. SCHs looked after ‘welfare cases’ – juveniles not convicted of an offence, who were in local authority care for their own protection and welfare, or to protect others.

• 2. YOIs, run by HMPS: these were much larger (generally 300–500) and with much lower staffing and thus much cheaper, but their regimes were correspondingly much more limited. YOIs also housed older prisoners, and there was much concern about juveniles mixing with this older group.

• 3. Two Youth Treatment Centres (YTS) Units: for the most dangerous and disordered 10–17 year olds, at Glenthorne in Birmingham and St Charles in Essex, run by the Department of Health. These were both closed by 2002.

The complicated legislative framework that had accreted over time provided for different routes by which different types of juvenile offender reached these institutions:

The complicated legislative framework that had accreted over time provided for different routes by which different types of juvenile offender reached these institutions:

• • Remands: the courts could not send juveniles to SCHs directly but could impose a supervision order with condition of secure accommodation, which it was up to the local authority concerned to implement; and over 15–17 year olds could be remanded to a YOI. could be remanded to a YOI.