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147. All secure accommodation must be approved by the Secretary of State for Health. Approval is usually given for up to three years at a time. Inspectors from the Department of Health inspect each secure unit (of which there are 43 in England), every year or so; in doing so they take account both of the quality of the care provided and of the condition of the premises.
148. The system of secure accommodation complies with article 10 of the Covenant. Children are treated with dignity: the aim is to use good child care practice to enable children to start tackling their problems and, as soon as possible, to enable them to be cared for in non-secure conditions. They are not detained with adults (secure accommodation being part of the child care system). As regards paragraph 2 (a) of article 10, convicted youngsters are not segregated from others requiring secure accommodation. This is because secure accommodation is, as mentioned, part of the child care system, not part of the penal system. If separate secure units were set up for convicted children, both children and staff would be likely to see them as part of the penal system. The child would be more likely to regard the making
secure order as a punishment, and less receptive, as a result, to the efforts of the staff to help him. It must also be stressed that convicted children, like other children, should not remain in secure accommodation once the relevant criteria have ceased to apply.
Correspondence and visits and the practice of religion
149. Young people in custody are entitled to at least two visits per month, although restrictions may be imposed as to the persons who may visit them. Their correspondence is subject to censorship, but in practice not more than 5 per cent - and at lower security establishments none of their correspondence is normally censored. Convicted adults are entitled to a visit every four weeks and those on remand can be visited every day, Monday to Saturday (Tuesday to Saturday in Northern Ireland). In March 1988, the privilege whereby an unconvicted prisoner could have food or drink sent in from outside the prison was abolished.
150. All prisoners, of whatever faith, are entitled to practise their religion in prison. Visiting ministers are appointed in each prison to cater for the needs of prisoners of particular faiths and the dietary requirements of prisoners are met to the fullest extent practicable. Prisoners are not obliged to work on their sabbath or holy days. Guidance has been issued to prison staff detailing the main tenets and practices of the major world religions.
Disciplinary matters
151. There have been several developments since the last report in the system in England and Wales for adjudication of disciplinary offences committed by inmates in prison. The departmental committee which the Home Secretary announced in October 1983 would be set up to look at the adjudication system, described in paragraph 37 of the second periodic report, reported in October 1985. This committee made a number of far-reaching proposals, including the setting up of independent prison disciplinary tribunals to take over from prison boards of visitors the role of hearing more serious disciplinary charges, changes to the code of disciplinary offences, and a reduction in the maximum amount of loss of remission of sentence that boards of visitors could award.