24 April 2025
When I first started working with children in custody at the Howard League for Penal Reform back in 2005, a huge part of my work was representing girls in the five girls’ units in adult women’s YOIs, which had recently opened in New Hall, Cookham Wood, Eastwood Park, Downview and Foston Hall.
As Dr Goodfellow’s brilliant thesis points out, during this period the number of girls under the age of 18 was at an all-time high, and the rate of incarceration of girls had increased much more quickly than that for boys in the early 2000s. The table below is taken from her thesis.
I will not name them for reasons of confidentiality, but there is a roll-check in my head of a number of girls who I would literally wake up most mornings wondering if they would still be with us in those early years. The rates of self-harm in the units were beyond bearable, and I wonder now how I managed to cope as a young lawyer in those days, absorbing the constant harm at a distance. I cannot imagine how the girls themselves, their loved ones or front-line staff coped.
When the girls units closed in around 2013, it felt like a huge triumph. Prison was no place for girls. It was therefore very sad that one of the last major pieces of work before I left as legal director at the Howard League was to instruct counsel to advise on whether the surprising decision to place girls not only back in a prison service establishment, but in a boy’s prison, was lawful. My brilliant former colleague, Sinead McCann and her colleagues at the Howard League continued to raise concerns about the legality of this practice and subsequently, the Government commissioned Susannah Hancock to undertake an independent review. I was lucky enough to sit in on two calls with clients of mine who wanted to speak about their experiences with Susannah. One had spent a long time in Wetherby prison and the other throughout a whole host of different establishments in the children’s and adult secure estate. Both clients experienced things in custody that no child or woman should ever have to go through anywhere, not least in the so-called care of the state. Their contributions, although painful to recount, no doubt made an impression on the final report, which was robust in its condemnation of the use of male prisons for girls. It was a huge relief when the recommendation that the practice should cease immediately for the handful of girls who are now sentenced to custody was accepted.
The sorry story of the incarceration of girls during my own legal career is a cautionary tale: progress should never be taken for granted, and even though the number of girls sentenced to prison are thankfully small, their needs are great, as is the risk of abuse.
To find out more about these issues, please sign up to this important event at Doughty Street Chambers on 20 May 2025, which will be chaired by Pippa Woodrow who advised the Howard League on the legality of putting girls in a boys’ prison, and will feature:
- My amazing colleague and fellow trustee at the National Association for Youth Justice, Dr Samantha Burns, who has co-authored a paper on this important topic with Laura Riley
- Dr Pippa Goodfellow, whose doctorate was on girls in custody
- My former client and brilliant speaker, Nardien (who will share her experiences in conversation with me)
- Susannah Hancock, who led the independent review
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/natonal-association-of-youth-justice/t-avpvpxl