Year of Childhood: Pre-Inspection Survey

HMIPS considered the monitoring of the quality of prison life (MQPL) survey used by HMIP in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and also looked at the work of the Office of the Inspector of Prisons (OIP) in the Republic of Ireland. In the Year of Childhood, the decision was made that the experiences of children in custody would provide an excellent pilot for an initial survey design, prior to developing a bespoke adult survey for the wider prison estate. In order to develop a survey that would capture and understand the experience of young people in prison, HMIPS worked together with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS) and The Children’s and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) to develop and conduct a snapshot survey on health and wellbeing of all children under 18 years old in prison custody (hereafter referred to as custody). This paper presents the findings from this pre-inspection survey. It should be noted that the findings are specific to children aged under 18 in custody, as well as to the children who took part in the survey. The findings here may not be representative of health and wellbeing across the wider prison estate.