England’s children’s commissioner calls for closure of young offender institutions
Custody is being used as a “waiting room” for hundreds of children who are being unnecessarily locked up while awaiting trial or sentencing due to failing services, the children’s commissioner for England has warned.Dame Rachel de Souza said many children were being placed in custody not because they posed the greatest risk, but because the systems designed to support them were failing.She called for the closure of all young offender institutions (YOIs) in England.In the annual Longford Lecture on Tuesday night, de Souza will warn we have “retreated from our moral duty” and become complacent about children in custody.“We have left a vacuum in the services that children need.
We have retreated from our moral duty towards these children.And then we are surprised when they fall down,” she is expected to say.“Childhood is short and wild and precious.But once you’re remanded into custody your innocence is gone.You see things.
You’re told you’re guilty.I am worried that we have become complacent about children in custody.We have treated it as a battle won.We have to close all young offender institutions.”New research on custodial remand for children – where young people are held in custody while awaiting trial or sentencing, rather than being released on bail – shows that many children are facing lengthy and unwarranted time behind bars.
A report by the commissioner, published on Tuesday, found that in 2023-24, more than half (62%) of all children remanded to custody in England and Wales did not receive a custodial sentence, and 168 children (17%) had their case dismissed altogether.The commissioner has called for urgent reforms to the youth justice system, including closing all YOIs – where inspection reports have warned of violence and serious safeguarding concerns – and instead increasing the use of placements in secure homes or specialist foster care.In July, Ofsted reported “serious and systemic failures” at Oakhill Secure Training Centre in Milton Keynes, where 23 staff members have been suspended in the last 12 months over allegations about their conduct with children.Feltham YOI was deemed “the most violent prison in the country” in July 2024, with teenage inmates refusing family visits to keep their relatives away from danger, and was closed temporarily in August 2025 due to safety concerns in the building.The commissioner’s research found the average length of time on remand in 2021-22 was 125 nights, up by 89% since 2013-14.
More than one in 10 (14%) of remand cases were for more than 182 days, longer than both the custody limit of 56 days at magistrates court and the upper limit of 182 days at crown court.Children with foster care placements dropped from 13% in 2013-14 to 5% in 2021-22.The report also found that in 2021-22, more than half (56%) of children remanded were from an Asian, black, mixed or other minority ethnic group.“There is an overrepresentation of black and mixed ethnic groups who receive a custodial remand than what is expected given the ethnicity of the child population,” the report states.Of all children remanded into custody in 2021-22, a quarter had previously been remanded into custody.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Custody should be a last resort for children, reserved for those who have committed serious crimes or pose a risk to the public.We’ve already ended the placement of girls in young offender institutions and are funding projects across the country that allow children to be remanded in the community.“We’re also steering even more young people away from crime in the first place – investing more than £15m this year to tackle the causes of their offending.”
Datacenters meet resistance over environmental concerns as AI boom spreads in Latin America
This Q&A originally appeared as part of The Guardian’s TechScape newsletter. Sign up for this weekly newsletter here.The datacenters that power the artificial intelligence boom are beyond enormous. Their financials, their physical scale, and the amount of information contained within are so massive that the idea of stopping their construction can seem like opposing an avalanche in progress.Despite the scale and momentum of the explosion of datacenters, resistance is mounting in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in Latin America, where datacenters have been built in some of the world’s driest areas
Can OpenAI keep pace with industry’s soaring costs?
It is the $1.4tn (£1.1tn) question. How can a loss-making startup such as OpenAI afford such a staggering spending commitment?Answer that positively and it will go a long way to easing investor concerns over bubble warnings in the artificial intelligence boom, from lofty tech company valuations to a mooted $3tn global spend on datacentres.The company behind ChatGPT needs a vast amount of computing power – or compute, in tech jargon – to train its models, produce their responses and build even more powerful systems in the future
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Apple and WhatsApp have vowed to keep warning users if their mobile phones are targeted by governments using hacking software against them, including in the US, as two spyware makers seek to make inroads with the Trump administration.The two technology giants made their statements in response to queries from the Guardian as the two cyberweapons makers – both founded in Israel and now owned by American investors – are aggressively pursuing access to the US market.Paragon Solutions, which makes a spyware called Graphite, already cemented a deal with the Trump administration in September to give US immigration agents access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools, after the Department of Homeland lifted a freeze on a $2m contract with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).Paragon did not respond to requests for comment.Another company, NSO Group, which was accused by the Biden administration in 2021 of engaging in business that was “contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US”, announced this weekend that David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel during Donald Trump’s first term, had agreed to become executive chairman of the holding company that owns NSO
Elon Musk makes himself far-right fixture after White House departure
The Tesla CEO once hinted he was done with politics – but he’s been leaning further into the international far rightWhen the far-right activist Tommy Robinson emerged from a London courtroom this week after a judge cleared him of a terrorism charge, he gave thanks to the man he said had bankrolled his defense.“Elon Musk, I’m forever grateful. If you didn’t step in and fund my legal fight I’d probably be in jail,” Robinson said. “Thank you, Elon.”In the period immediately after Musk’s messy departure from the White House, the Tesla CEO repeatedly suggested that he was done with politics
ChatGPT accused of acting as ‘suicide coach’ in series of US lawsuits
ChatGPT has been accused of acting as a “suicide coach” in a series of lawsuits filed this week in California alleging that interactions with the chatbot led to severe mental breakdowns and several deaths.The seven lawsuits include allegations of wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, negligence and product liability.Each of the seven plaintiffs initially used ChatGPT for “general help with schoolwork, research, writing, recipes, work, or spiritual guidance”, according to a joint statement from the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project, which filed the lawsuits in California on Thursday.Over time, however, the chatbot “evolved into a psychologically manipulative presence, positioning itself as a confidant and emotional support”, the groups said.“Rather than guiding people toward professional help when they needed it ChatGPT reinforced harmful delusions, and, in some cases, acted as a ‘suicide coach’
‘Musk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk’ – why investors are happy to pay him $1tn
For all the headlines about an on-off relationship with Donald Trump, baiting liberals and erratic behaviour, Tesla shareholders are loath to part with Elon Musk.Investors in the electric vehicle maker voted on Thursday to put the world’s richest person on the path to become the world’s first trillionaire, despite the controversy that is now seemingly intrinsic to his public profile.Shareholders approved the $1tn compensation plan, which could yield the largest corporate payout in history if he meets a series of tough-looking goals, not least pushing Tesla from its current market value of $1.4tn to $8.5tn (£1
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