Grayling gives green light for staff to use force against inmates in new jail

Plans to build new ‘super child jails’ for kids as young as 12 will be run by private companies.  Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has decided that prison staff should be able to use force on the teenagers to keep order.

‘Chris Grayling is to defy an appeal court judgement and order that staff should be able to use force to restrain teenage inmates for “the purposes of good order and discipline” at his proposed £85m privately run ‘super-child jail’.

The proposed rule for the justice secretary’s 320-place ‘secure college’ comes despite a court of appeal ruling in 2008 which banned the use of force after it was linked to the deaths and injury of several children in custody, including the death of a 14-year-old Gareth Myatt.

Bids from private companies to run the new super-child jail will be sought from early next year, according to the forward to the draft rules, and it is expected a 10 year contract will be in place before the general election. Child inmates aged 12 to 17 will be expected to wear a uniform while they are locked up unlike most other young offenders in detention.’

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