In England and Wales everyone accused of a crime is innocent unless and until proven guilty. Yet we imprison thousands of unconvicted adults and children. Nearly half the children imprisoned in England and Wales are on remand (imprisoned while awaiting trial or sentence).

But our research indicates that, for many children, prison is used as a “holding pen” while authorities work out how best to supervise them in the community.  1 in 6 children are in prison on remand for a week or less. Two thirds of the children remanded for any length of time do not go on to get a custodial sentence. And 15% are acquitted.

Does a short spell in prison matter for a child? Yes, a lot. Most of our children’s prisons are brutal places where children get little time out of their cells and where they face violence when they do. This is a stressful and traumatic experience for any child, let alone one who is fighting to prove their innocence while awaiting a trial. The drama Time showed that children on remand face the same terrible conditions as those who have been sentenced.

Depriving a child of their liberty can be justified if there’s really good evidence that the child poses a danger to their community. But it doesn’t look as if the evidence is there. A third of children who are remanded are accused of a non violent crime. And the ultimate decision speaks volumes – if most children who are convicted don’t receive a custodial sentence then a judge has decided that they are safe enough to serve their sentence in the community. So why lock them up on remand? We surveyed youth justice workers who said three quarters of the remands they had recently dealt with were inappropriate. 

It also looks as if child remand is racially biased – two thirds of children who are remanded are from racially minoritised groups. And, of these, Black and Mixed heritage are remanded at over seven times the rate of White children. It’s not clear quite why this is, though racism is likely to be a factor. 

So is this injustice going to be righted? Transform Justice, in partnership with the Co-op foundation, are working for three years on a project to reduce unnecessary child remand. Sometimes it’s difficult to persuade the government that there is a problem, let alone get them to work on resolving it. But this administration is determined to bring down child remand numbers – by at least 25%. They’ve funded local areas to galvanise their work in this area and are contemplating changing the law to make it more difficult to remand children. 

If you interested in delving into the subject a little further we have published a compendium of the data and an accessible podcast.