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'We have inherited a system in crisis,' says prison minister as emergency measures are introduced – British politics live | Politics

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The police face a “huge task” in adopting an approach that puts the protection of children and young people first, said Dame Rachel de Souza.

She told BBC Breakfast: “As the Children's Commissioner, I get to talk to children everywhere. I talk to children in youth prison, children in schools, children in hospitals, children everywhere.”

“And in fact, a million children recently took part in my surveys asking what they thought about what the government should do.

“When I talk to them about the police and they react to the police, they say they know it's a tough job. They know the police have to do tough things. They want to be protected by the police, but the police have to be trustworthy and follow the rules.

“I think that really says it all, and I think there are groups of young people who feel that that's not the case and that they're being unfairly victimized, you know, and unfortunately data like this shows that it looks like that's the case, because we certainly can't say that it's not.

“So I think the police have a big job to do here in terms of listening to young people, particularly those from the black community and other communities that are disproportionately represented in these numbers.”

Dame Rachel added: “It is not always the large urban centres where most strip searches are carried out. This is the case across the country. The police have a big job to do in listening to children and putting child protection first in their policing.”

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Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza warned that strip searches of children should only be carried out if their lives are in danger.

Dame Rachel told BBC Breakfast: “My argument is that they should only be carried out if the situation is life-threatening. I would remind viewers that this is a provisional arrest, this is a child who is only a suspicion. They are taken away – there should be an appropriate adult present: 45% of the time this is not the case.

“And their clothes are removed and their most intimate body parts are examined and, if necessary, moved.

“It's a very intrusive procedure and given that only about half of strip searches result in further action and a far smaller percentage actually result in charges, it's hard to see that they're being done because it's a really, really life-or-death matter that they're being done.

“And for me that is the benchmark that really has to be in place.”

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The vice-president of the Prison Governors' Association said he was “not sure” how much Operation Early Dawn would help solve the prison crisis.

Mark Icke said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “I'm not sure it will help today, tomorrow or the day after, because as I've just suggested, we've been lurching from one crisis to the next for some time now.”

“Running a prison is an incredibly complex business and that is why we don’t know which way to go at the moment.”

He added that short-term measures were “not ideal”.

“We made this clear to the previous administration, we made this clear to the new administration, and we really want to sit down and have a conversation about what the purpose of the prison will be in the future,” he said.

“We cannot continue working in such an environment, the pressure is simply too great.”

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Opening summary

Good morning and welcome to our UK politics blog. We start with the news that ministers have taken emergency action to ease prison overcrowding as more rioters are convicted for their role in the recent unrest.

These long-standing measures, known as Operation Early Dawn, allow defendants to be detained in police cells until prison beds become available, which can lead to a short-term postponement or adjournment of their court dates.

Labour had already stated that the previous Conservative government had failed to tackle prison overcrowding. On Monday, Prisons and Probation Minister Lord Timpson said:

We have inherited a justice system that is in crisis and is undergoing disruption, and we are therefore forced to take difficult but necessary decisions to keep it functioning.

The national chairman of the Prison Guards Association also blamed the Tories. Mark Fairhurst told BBC Breakfast:

The situation has been quite tense for months now because we are so full and, let's be honest, that is because of the previous government.

They have closed 20 public prisons, not enough new prisons have been built, not enough space has been created in prisons, and people are serving longer sentences.

More on the prison crisis later. Further developments:

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