The recent deterioration of conditions for young offenders has been overshadowed by the wider crisis engulfing prisons in England and Wales. But the accounts given to the Guardian by three mothers of sons who are currently in HMP Swinfen Hall, in Staffordshire, offer a disturbing insight into the exceptionally high levels of violence that have become normalised.

Their descriptions of “constant fear”, casual knifings and “drugs and knives everywhere” are chilling. Two of the women said that they agreed with the decision to jail their sons. But reading their testimony, which echoes the findings of a recent prison inspectorate survey, it is impossible to believe that any rehabilitative purpose is being served. The suggestion by one of the women that her son is becoming more violent rather than less due to the conditions rings alarmingly true, and is in line with the conclusion of David Gauke’s independent review of sentencing that prisons are

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