Wardens are said to be having to give back TVs they have confiscated from teens for violence or bad behaviour in a ‘decency’ drive.
Officers in youth jails have reportedly been left stunned by the instruction – which sees sets returned to lags, including rapists and murderers.
An email from the governor of Fetham Young Offenders Institution, in west London, is said to have told staff the removal could lead to ‘frustration’ among the teenagers.
In the year up to March 2024 the facility saw 410 violent incidents – a rate of 488 incidents per 100 children.
It is considered to be the most violent in England and Wales, with authorities finding 343 weapons in a year – nearly one a day.
A source said confiscating TVs is one of the only ways to punish young offenders.
‘Now we have been told we can’t take them away even if they assault us. Predictably, since the boys have found out, this the place has gone wild,’ an insider told The Sun.
A messy cell at Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution, photographed during a March 2024 inspection by the Chief Inspector of Prisons
A source said confiscating TVs is one of the only ways to punish young offenders. Pictured: The front gate of Feltham
The order is also reported to be being rolled out at institutions in Werrington in Staffordshire, Wetherby in West Yorkshire and Bridgend in South Wales.
Just last month justice secretay Shabana Mahmood authorised the use of pepper spray at young offender institutions at Feltham, Werrington and Wetherby.
‘If a TV is to be considered for removal, a case will need to be raised to the Deputy Governor,’ the email said, as seen by The Sun.
‘Leaving boys without a TV is one of the sources of frustration that leads to instability – so will help to drive to safety through decency.’
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice told the newspaper: ‘Staff cannot remove TVs, but they are encouraged to look at other options.’
Last year Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor painted a disturbing picture of conditions inside Feltham A young offender institution (YOI), describing a volatile environment where children aged between 15 and 18 play ‘the big man’ and have to be kept apart.
Housing 84 boys inside a run-down, poorly-insulated building that suffers from frequent leaks, the facility saw a spree of violent incidents in the year to March.
Figures suggest six times more violence at the west London site than at HMP Bedford – one of the most violent adult prisons – where a recent inspection found the rate of violence was calculated at 80.6 incidents per 100 prisoners.
Broken shower cubicles inside Feltham, as seen during the March 2024 inspection
Over last summer the level of disorder reached such a level that dogs were introduced to Feltham to keep order. One person assaulted 38 members of staff in seven months, according to a separate report published in August 2023.
Mr Taylor, who visited in March, said he was ‘very concerned’ by how the prison had ‘deteriorated’ since his last inspection, although he praised staff who had ‘managed to maintain impressively positive and supportive relationships’ with inmates ‘despite the violence around them’.
A source with knowledge of the jail told MailOnline at the time that Feltham was particularly at risk from violence because it brought together serious young offenders – often with links to gangs – all in one place.
In his inspection Mr Taylor found there more than 260 different instructions to prevent children from mixing.
Seven inmates had been separated for more than 50 days, while two of them for more than 100.
Mr Taylor warned that rather than being placed in lessons with children who had similar abilities and interests, boys were allocated to classes based on with whom they could mix without fighting.
In an interview with BBC Radio London, he said many of these orders were to prevent violent gang disputes.
‘The danger is, it feeds the sort of grandiosity that some of these kids might have about themselves that ‘I’m the big man and I can’t mix with anybody’,’ he said.
The exercise area at Feltham. Mr Taylor praised staff who had ‘managed to maintain impressively positive and supportive relationships’ with inmates ‘despite the violence around them’
His inspectors found high levels of violence and rising self-harm when they visited Feltham A in March 2024.
Incidents of disorder had ‘tripled’ since the last inspection, with the latest report detailing the volatile situation the watchdog found behind bars.
There had been a ‘dramatic increase’ in the number of assaults and serious incidents last summer which led to the education block being shut down for several weeks.
Reacting to Mr Taylor’s report, Mark Fairhurst, chair of the Prison Officers Association, warned ‘a tragedy is on its way’ and claimed ‘brave staff’ had been left with ‘zero protection’.
