Nacro responds to yesterday’s (26.08.2025) unannounced inspection of HMYOI Feltham A by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons.
Campbell Robb, Chief Executive of Nacro, the social justice charity, said:
“Too many children in custody are being failed—locked up for hours without meaningful activity, cut off from education and left feeling unsafe.
“While we welcome this report’s findings of progress at Feltham including that violence has begun to fall, serious problems remain. Self-harm and the use of force are still far too high, and children are spending hours locked in their cells.
“Children should only be held in custody as an absolute last resort. And for those children we must ensure that they have a safe and rehabilitative environment so that every child has the chance to build a better future.”
Notes to editors
Learn more about our work
We operate in more than 40 prisons and provide services across England and Wales.
We help 28,000 people across our services each year and run the CAS-2 service for the Government housing people coming out of prison on bail or licence.
We work with people at every stage of the criminal justice system, from liaison and diversion services in police custody and courts, to resettlement into the community after prison.
We use the insights from our services and the experiences of the people we support to campaign together for a criminal justice system which better serves us all. We’ve been working in this field for more than 50 years.
