Children in youth custody were “failed” by multiple services long before they offended, the Children’s Commissioner has warned.
Custody settings are often “compounding” the disadvantages children face rather than addressing them, according to Dame Rachel de Souza.
Dame Rachel said she is “deeply concerned” that secure settings risk “turning out hardened criminals with a palpable distrust in the state”.
The Children’s Commissioner is calling for an overhaul of the youth justice system to ensure education is prioritised as part of rehabilitation.
There should be “preventative measures” in education before children reach youth custody to support young people to re-engage with school, she said.
Dame Rachel said: “We need only to look at recent terrible news headlines from Southport, Sheffield and south London to understand the importance of intervening early and swiftly in children’s lives – for them, but also for other children’s safety and the wider public.”
The report analysed the data of 950 children educated in England who spent time in youth custody for any period of time between September 2017 and August 2022.
It also included interviews with children and staff in youth secure settings, as well as an analysis of survey responses from children in secure settings.
The commissioner’s office found that children in secure settings have “common experiences” of missing education, school exclusion, special educational needs and child poverty.
Only a fifth of children in secure settings who had sat their English and maths GCSEs achieved a “standard pass”, compared with more than 70% of pupils in schools, the report found.
More than three in four children (77%) in youth custody were persistently or severely absent in their most recent year at a state school – three times higher than their peers in state schools (24%) in 2021/22.
Around a quarter of children in youth custody had been permanently excluded while at school between 2012/13 and 2021/22.
In comparison, there were only eight permanent exclusions per 10,000 pupils in state schools in 2021/22.
The research found that some local authorities were more frequently named as the location of children’s last education settings before going to prison.
More than a third (36%) of children in secure settings had most recently been registered at education settings in the West Midlands, according to the report.
At any given time, around 400 children are held in just 14 youth settings in England and Wales.
Dame Rachel said their stories are “almost universally ones of being failed by services at every stage of their lives so far”.
She added that for too many children “a good education feels out of reach”.
She said: “Many of these children faced challenges long before custody – gaps in education, unmet additional needs, behavioural issues, and high levels of school exclusion, often compounded by poverty.
“Too often, they were labelled as ‘naughty’ rather than being given the help they needed.
“Education is one of the most powerful tools we have for changing lives, offering stability and opportunity.
“For children in these settings, it must be at the heart of rehabilitation, giving them a real chance to rebuild their lives and promote a future away from re-offending.”
A government spokesperson said: “Central to our Plan for Change is our commitment to drive high standards for every child, so that wherever they live, regardless of their background, no child is left behind.
“We are already tackling inequalities in our education system that prevent children’s needs from being identified, including by ensuring earlier intervention and inclusion for pupils with SEND, developing an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty and taking action to boost attendance in schools.
“We will also roll out a new Young Futures programme to identify young people most at risk of being drawn into crime and create a network of youth hubs in communities across the country to make Britain safer for the next generation.”