Feltham Young Offenders Institute?

Trust what Cornish Granny says. We both answered another question like this a while ago. She knows what she is talking about. Ringo's answer is good as well. I would just add that the orders are called Detention and Training orders, not the other way round.

As to whether they reform people, they seem to work. It is quite hard to check whether they work, as you can't really compare to people who didn't get sent there, as they did less serious things.

It has to be a pretty serious offence for someone to got to prison. The legal test is 'so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified'.

I do not have a breakdown of the ethnic origin of the inmates. I would guess, based on the rates of offending among different groups and where Feltham is, that many of them are black. A sad result of historic economic and social factors.

I lived near it some years ago when it was known as Feltham Borstal. Soon after that the PC brigade got a Labour government to change it's name to the present one. It was a prison for young convicted criminals. I understand it was a hard life so I never heard of anyone ever serving a second term, unlike the drug ridden holiday camps adult convicts are sent to these days. With the shortage of prison space I don't know why our convicts aren't sent to prisons in their country of origin for their sentences. If a shortage still exists it would be much cheaper to send our convicts to foreign prisons. After all that's where most of our manufacturing industry has been sent. I understand that China, Turkey and several other Eastern countries are very good at housing prisoners so that they won't re-offend.

I lived near it some years ago when it was known as Feltham Borstal. Soon after that the PC brigade got a Labour government to change it's name to the present one.

It was a prison for young convicted criminals. I understand it was a hard life so I never heard of anyone ever serving a second term, unlike the drug ridden holiday camps adult convicts are sent to these days.

With the shortage of prison space I don't know why our convicts aren't sent to prisons in their country of origin for their sentences.

If a shortage still exists it would be much cheaper to send our convicts to foreign prisons. After all that's where most of our manufacturing industry has been sent.

I understand that China, Turkey and several other Eastern countries are very good at housing prisoners so that they won't re-offend.

I work in a Young Offenders Institute but not that one. Their crimes are various from knife crime, arson, GBH, rape . There is a mixture of sentences from a few weeks to several years. They all have DOT which is detention order and training. They are obliged to take educational classes and Adult literacy and numeracy, also GCSEs. They do try to reform the youngsters but the staff are not social workers they are there to contain them. In the unit I work for there are about 300 young men of which about 2 thirds are black, some are asian but the majority are white.

I have worked in Feltham and although it is for young offender the crimes they are in for are exactly the same as those commited by adults, they range from motoring offences to very seriouse crimes. There are various outside contractors who go into the prison to help the inmates by means of education or other services. The main function of the prison is to contain those who have been sent there by the courts either on remand and awaiting trials or who have been convicted and at some point allocated to other prisons.

Operational capacity: 764 as of 3rd January 2008

Reception criteria: Young people from the age of 15 to 18 deemed as unsuitable or not warranting secure local authority accommodation. Young Adults from the age of 18 to 21 placed in custody by the courts.

Accommodation: Young Adults and Young People occupy separate residential units. There are currently 8 units for young people; this includes Bittern and Curlew as first night and induction units. Each Unit holds 30 Young People.

On the Young Adult side there are 10 Units, 8 of which hold 56 Young Adults, one that holds 44 and one Enhanced Unit of 16. Almost all the Young People's rooms are for single occupation. There is a mixture of double and single accommodation on the Young Adult side. All rooms have integral sanitation and TV. All areas operate the IEP scheme (Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme).

There is a robust anti-bullying policy in place. Locked complaint boxes are located on each unit for Young Adults and Young People to make complaints.

There are two race relations/diversity managers and equal opportunities/disability manager. There are PIN Phones on each unit and every Young Adults and Young Person arriving at Feltham is given his own PIN number with an automatic £2 of credit.

Any money for the Young People and Young Adults should be sent in the form of a postal order which should be made payable to HM Prison Service and have the Young People's name and number on the reverse.

Regime: Regime includes education (full/part-time), workshops, vocational training in the construction industry, farms and gardens, works, and NVQs. Various types of offending behaviour groups are available – ETS (enhanced thinking skills), STAR (Stop, Think, Act, Reflect) Understanding Anger and IPRS (relationship skills). There are other special features such as; the use of voluntary agencies, one to one teaching, substance misuse work, and pre-release courses. Hope this helped.