Horrific reports of how girls are treated in male prison

[coureur]

An awful story of how a vulnerable girl was stripped twice by an all male team of prison officers at Wetherby YOI. She was attempting to make ligatures from her clothing, so she will have been stripped completely naked, all her bedding taken, and put on close observation in a freezing cell.

How can we as a society still be treating girls, or indeed any children, like this? Why are girls still being sent to male YOIs where they have to spend up to 23 hours in their cells?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/05/girl-at-yoi-wetherby-was-twice-stripped-by-male-officers-watchdog-says?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I found this news story really upsetting. Just imagining my DD being strip searched by male guards - it chills me to the core. That poor girl must be totally traumatised.

I am very surprised that there were no other female officers on duty, but TBF I don't know Wetherby at all. The problem is that as prison officers, we are expected to preserve life wherever possible. If my officers are faced with a vulnerable girl who is actively trying to commit suicide, they have to try and stop her.

If it was my desperate and self-destrctive child in a cell, I would want anyone to go in and stop her. Of course I would rather it was female officers but if its a choice between men and dying...I choose men. This child would NEVER EVER have been left naked in a cell. She would have been given anti-ligature clothing and yes, put in a bare cell. Some people manage to harm themselves even in these conditions. Noone is happy when a prisoner harms or ills themselves, and its even worse when its a child prisoner.

The problem lies in a system that provides inadequate mental health services for children inside and outside custody. Children who bravely report abuse are ignored or demeaned, and the price and social services are desperately underfunded.

Not young women - children.