Follow-Up Review on Hydebank Wood Young Offenders Centre and Ash House, Hydebank Wood Prison publish

Two follow-up inspection reports on Hydebank Wood Young Offenders Centre and Ash House, Hydebank Wood Prison published today by CJI have commended staff for their great efforts to improve the facilities over last 3 years but reiterated the recommendations made by the Inspectorate in its original 2007 inspection report, which stated that further progress cannot be achieved within the present regimes operating in both facilities, which both require a complete overhaul.

“Staff at both facilities are to be commended for the efforts they have made to make improvements following our last inspections; indeed progress has been made,” said Dr Michael Maguire. “However it is our considered view that further and substantial improvements in each facility are not possible in the current operating environments at both Ash House and the Young Offenders Centre.

 

“The improvements are welcome but they are no substitute for the overhaul required in both centres.”

 

Both follow-up reports reiterated previously stated views that, in the case of Ash House, the Northern Ireland Prison service should create, ‘a separate and dedicated women’s facility, without which the needs of this vulnerable population are unlikely to be properly met,’ and that Hydebank Wood YOC is ‘quite simply an unsuitable place to hold children under the age of 18.’