Violence levels fall but HMYOI Werrington 'remains volatile'

More than a quarter of children at Werrington, which has had four governors in three years, told inspectors they felt unsafe.

Overall violence levels at a young offender institution have fallen but it remains "incredibly volatile", inspectors said.

Last year HMYOI Werrington, near Stoke-on-Trent, had the highest levels of violence for young offender institutions across England and Wales.

Serious disorder incidents have since increased by 76% with one incident seeing a glass classroom door smashed.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said they had already addressed concerns.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons visited the site, near Stoke-on-Trent, which holds sentenced and remanded children aged 15 to 17 years of age, in July and August.

More than a quarter of children at the site, which has had four governors in three years, told inspectors they felt unsafe.

Inspectors found violence had reduced by 30% but instances of serious disorder were up, with 60 incidents during the previous six months.

These included children refusing to come off the exercise yard and groups trying to get to other children.

Even though overall violence had reduced, the institution remained "incredibly volatile", inspectors said.

Damaged education area after recent incident of disorder at Werrington

They also found there were 383 incidents of force used on children in the last six months - with Werrington accounting for 56% of all use of force injuries in the YOI estate, despite holding 18% of the total population.

The report said the duration of restraint had increased to an average of four-and-a-half minutes, the longest for all YOI sites.

Half of the front line officers who should be working with the children were unavailable for duties at the time of inspection, because of illness or because they had been injured in the course of their work,

'Keep apart' arrangements meant most children were only out of their cells for four hours per day, with some locked in their cells during the school day, inspectors said.

Angus Jones, team leader for children and young people who inspected the prison, said his team was surprised to find many of the issues pointed out a year ago had not been fully addressed.

"We found a prison where children weren't motivated to behave well. They weren't challenged when they behaved badly and as a consequence we have seen an escalating pattern of serious disorder," he said.

Priorities for the prison to address included:

• The shortfall of operational staff

• Systems for the safeguarding of children which have fallen into disarray

• Behaviour management systems being ineffective

More positively, inspectors found the institution had an up to date reducing reoffending strategy.

Work to support and maintain family contact was similarly encouraging, the report said.

"Decisive action" had already been taken to address concerns raised by the inspectors which included hiring more staff, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said.