The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for children in custody: An analysis of inspection reports.

Autor: Lennox C; Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom., Duncan-Zaleski M; Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom., Nasim S; Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom., Shirley O; Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom., Ross K; Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom., Chitsabesan P; Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom.; Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom., Robinson L; Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.; Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, Preston, United Kingdom., Shaw J; Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom., Leonard S; Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Division of Psychology and Mental Health, School of Health Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Jun 20; Vol. 19 (6), pp. e0304862. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jun 20 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0304862
Abstrakt: Background: Children in custodial settings are a vulnerable group. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic there were concerns about the safety of children in these settings. COVID-19 has had an impact on everyone but given the vulnerability of children in custody, there were concerns about the impact of COVID-19 restrictions. All custody settings for children are independently inspected and this research aimed to analyse data from inspection reports. Twenty-six inspection reports undertaken between March 2020 and October 2021 were analysed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on delivery of usual care/regime.
Results: Data showed that across all site's children spent considerable amounts of time isolated and in some cases, this was deemed to amount to solitary confinement. There was evidence of some positive experiences, in the smaller sites, around COVID-19 slowing the pace of life allowing staff and children could foster relationships. However, in the larger sites, isolation was extreme and COVID-19 policies such as 'bubbles' appear to have created unintended consequences as sites have moved into recovery, leading to increased violence and stress. COVID-19 directly impacted staffing levels. This and the COVID-19 policies to reduce mixing also had an impact on how children's behaviour, welfare and safeguarding was managed. In some larger sites, being COVID-19 secure was prioritised over the needs of the children.
Conclusions: This research highlights the importance of multi-site longitudinal research to understand how children, staff and institution's function. The experiences of children in custody during COVID-19 differed by site type. The research suggests that the larger sites are struggling to keep children safe and there should be a shift towards smaller, more therapeutic environments. More research is needed to understand the longer-term unintended consequences of COVID-19 policy in custody, for these vulnerable children.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Lennox et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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