According to a new report by the Prisons and Probation inspectorates, facilities are failing to prepare children to live safely when they’re released.
Most young offenders have no training, education or employment arranged and mental health support is often “lacking”.
It has also claimed that in many cases suitable housing is not in place.
Caring for Ex-Offenders is initiative by London church Holy Trinity Brompton that helps former inmates reintegrate into society.
Speaking to Premier, Caring for executive director, Paul Cowley said prisons are already taking positive steps to provide better support, but funding needs to increase.
He said: “They have hired over 4,000 new prison officers, but that will take a while to get into the system, more education. And basically, it sounds like the same old thing is needed – more money for our prison system.”
Cowley thinks the UK prison system needs to be re-considered: “We have to rethink how we run prisons, when we look around the world at the way prisons are run, especially the Scandinavian countries, how they treat people in prison, it’s very different to the way we treat them. Ours is a little bit archaic still.”
There are also concerns that a lack of adequate support will contribute to re-offending rates.
According to statistics for April 2016 to March 2017, some 70 per cent of children re-offended after release when…
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