The latest Safety in Custody data confirms what we already know: young adults are not safe in custodial settings. 

In our recent response to the Justice Committee’s inquiry into Children and Young Adults in the Secure Estate, we highlighted the volatility of prisons for young adults, with lived experience focus groups held by T2A confirming this: 

“If you want to get support, you have to kick off, it’s the only way you’re going to get their attention. It’s like they’re encouraging that chaos and violence” – Young adult with lived experience of custody, 2026 

Safety in custody data shows that in 2025, young people aged 18-20 in prison had the highest rates of incidents where they were involved as assailants (862 per 1,000 prisoners), fighters (1,008 per 1,000 prisoners) and victims (406 per 1,000 prisoners). 

But this is not just an issue of violence: the data shows that the mental strain the secure estate puts an already vulnerable cohort of young adults under leads to worryingly high incidents of self-harm. In 2024, young adults accounted for over one in five self-harm incidents in prisons. 

In 2025, the highest rates of self-harm incidents in prisons were in the 18-20 age range, with 1,760 incidents per 1,000 prisoners, and 1,355 incidents per 1,000 prisoners for those aged 21-24. This figure skyrockets when taking into account young women: in the women’s estate, amongst 18-20 year olds, there were 38,859 incidents of self-harm per 1,000 prisoners. Despite making up just 8% of the women’s prison population, young women aged 18-25 made up 41% of self-harm incidents in 2025. 

This crisis of mental health amongst young adults in prisons correlates with a noted lack of support, with young adults feeling alone and ‘left to fend for themselves’ despite the fear and chaos surrounding them in the prison environment. 

“Moving from a YOI to an adult prison, it was daunting, it was scary. There’s no support when you do get there, you’re very much just left to fend for yourself.” – Young adult with lived experience of custody, 2026 

This lack of support relates to staffing. In focus groups held by T2A, young adults expressed feeling unsupported and abandoned by staff. For those transitioning from Young Offender Institutions to the adult estate, support was not carried over. 

“There are supposed to be keyworkers in prisons, but I literally saw my key worker once or twice during my whole sentence. I don’t even know if she was working there, I had no idea how to find her even if I did want to talk to her.” – Young adult with lived experience of custody, 2026 

“Going from a YOI to an adult prison, there was no preparation or support. I knew coming up to turning 21 that I was going to be moved, but I didn’t know when. I found out I was being moved a week in advance and was never told where I was being moved to.” – Young adult with lived experience of custody, 2026 

Our response to the Justice Committee’s inquiry into Children and Young Adults in the Secure Estate makes several bold asks for the Committee and the Government to consider in addressing this urgent and dangerous state of affairs, including: 

• No child or young adult, especially girls or young women, should be placed in custody except as a genuinely verified last resort where no community alternative exists.  

• Where custody is unavoidable, a developmentally and gender-informed, trauma-responsive, and culturally appropriate regime must be operational, with the transition at 18 from youth to adult provision explicitly planned and fully and appropriately resourced in custody and upon release. 

• The Government should legislate to establish young adults aged 18-25 as a distinct statutory cohort within the criminal justice system through an ‘Emerging Adult Transition Status’, creating a legal presumption against standard adult custodial conditions, with specific sentencing protections, custodial regime entitlements, and post-release support obligations. 

• HM Inspectorate of Prisons should be given a statutory duty to inspect against a young adult specific inspection framework, and formal joint escalation protocols between the inspectorates should be set up, for establishments that fail to meet minimum standards for young adults. 

• An independently evaluated programme of pilots testing dedicated young adult custodial units, including small therapeutic units and dedicated wings within adult establishments, should be commissioned without further delay, reporting findings to this Committee within two years. 

T2A is calling on the Government to be bold, and take a generational opportunity to end the crises young adults in prisons are facing.  

The context for the above recommendations could not be more urgent. The Government is currently investing £4.7 billion to deliver 14,000 new prison places by 2031. Without a fundamental reimagining of the system’s operational framework, this investment will compound current failings for another generation.  

The overarching recommendation of our submission to the Committee was legislation to establish young adults aged 18 to 25 as a statutorily recognised distinct cohort within the justice system.  

Without statutory underpinning, incremental reforms will continue to stall at the point of implementation, as they have done with marked consistency, for nearly a decade since the Justice Committee’s last inquiry into young adults.