The brutalisation of working-class children in British penal institutions has a long and disturbing history and has always been characterised by physical abuse. This takes the form both of the officially sanctioned use of violent methods of restraint, and of the existence of a pervasive unsanctioned, but rarely challenged, culture of abuse by guards who effectively operate beyond the law.
In April 2025, following pressure from the Prison Officers Association (POA), the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) announced that it would authorise the use of PAVA spray in young offender prisons. PAVA is a chemical spray classified as a prohibited weapon under the Firearms Act. The decision was condemned by a host of bodies such as the British Association of Social Workers, who described the decision as an ‘abject failure to safeguard those children in custody’. The Howard League for Penal Reform launched a judicial review of the MOJ’s decision to allow the use of PAVA against imprisoned children; however this challenge was dismissed by the High Court on 19 January 2026.
Evidence of the arbitrary use of PAVA in adult prisons since its introduction in 2018 warned how that abuse would be magnified in children’s prisons. Official statistics indicate that black adult prisoners are almost seven times more likely to be PAVA sprayed than white prisoners, and that Muslim prisoners are also disproportionately targeted for ‘restraint’ with PAVA. In young offender institutes there is already a disproportionate level of ‘restraint’ used on Muslim detainees, so inevitably this group will suffer further disproportionate targeting with PAVA.
In Britain, the age of criminal responsibility is ten years’ old. This is among the lowest globally, with the UN recommending at least 14. Although there has been an overall drop in child imprisonment in recent years, this trend appears to be being reversed and figures for 2023/4 issued at the start of 2025 showed a 21% increase in the number of children sent to prison, compared to the previous period. Alongside this, the regimes in young offender institutes are becoming more brutal and dehumanising.
In borstals and detention centres, the fore-runners of the current institutions, children were systematically brutalised, with the full blessing of the system at all levels. In November 2025, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman published its report of an investigation into systemic, long-term physical and sexual abuse of young prisoners at Medomsley Detention Centre in County Durham. For decades, authorities at all levels had ignored or covered this up, and it was only because of the persistence of survivors and a small number of campaigning journalists — particularly the late Guardian prisons correspondent and FRFI contributor Eric Allison — that this abuse was forced into the light.
The reality is that the poorest and most marginalised working-class children are fed into the criminal justice system, where they are brutalised or ‘disciplined’ by prison guards. These guards are now further armed with a dangerous incapacitant spray. The POA continues to demand more weaponry and undoubtedly will next be asking that taser stun guns, currently being rolled out in adult prisons, are made available for use on children.
The British state is guilty of systemic child abuse but few of those inflicting that abuse will ever be held legally accountable or feel a shred of guilt for their actions. The treatment of child ‘offenders’ reveals the total depravity of the capitalist state.
John Bowden
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