The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for children in custody: An analysis of inspection reports.

Background: Children in custodial settings are a vulnerable group. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic there were concerns about the safety of children in these settings. COVID-19 has had an impact on everyone but given the vulnerability of children in custody, there were concerns about the impact of COVID-19 restrictions. All custody settings for children are independently inspected and this research aimed to analyse data from inspection reports. Twenty-six inspection reports undertaken between March 2020 and October 2021 were analysed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on delivery of usual care/regime.

Results: Data showed that across all site's children spent considerable amounts of time isolated and in some cases, this was deemed to amount to solitary confinement. There was evidence of some positive experiences, in the smaller sites, around COVID-19 slowing the pace of life allowing staff and children could foster relationships. However, in the larger sites, isolation was extreme and COVID-19 policies such as 'bubbles' appear to have created unintended consequences as sites have moved into recovery, leading to increased violence and stress. COVID-19 directly impacted staffing levels. This and the COVID-19 policies to reduce mixing also had an impact on how children's behaviour, welfare and safeguarding was managed. In some larger sites, being COVID-19 secure was prioritised over the needs of the children.

Conclusions: This research highlights the importance of multi-site longitudinal research to understand how children, staff and institution's function. The experiences of children in custody during COVID-19 differed by site type. The research suggests that the larger sites are struggling to keep children safe and there should be a shift towards smaller, more therapeutic environments. More research is needed to understand the longer-term unintended consequences of COVID-19 policy in custody, for these vulnerable children.