Your legal rights on remand

• Published: 2023

• Pages: 36

• Publisher: The Howard League for Penal Reform

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Your legal rights on remand: a guide for young adults What's wrong with remanding young adults to prison: voices and lessons learned

This colourful 36-page guide is designed to help young adults understand their legal rights if they are remanded in custody. Developed in workshops with young adults in prison, it is aimed at 18- to 25-year-olds but may also be helpful to older adults on remand.

The guide begins by explaining what it means to be remanded and how young adults can get advice and support to apply for bail. It then covers how social services may be able to help, before going on to explain what a young adult’s rights are in prison, including special rights if they have not been convicted of an offence, and what they can do if they are not getting their entitlements.

The guide also explains how a young adult can find a solicitor, who else they can contact for advice and support, and what the rules are around contacting their legal advisers.

The guide is complemented by a detailed briefing for practitioners and policymakers, What’s wrong with remanding young adults to prison: voices and lessons learned, which reveals that, while young adults account for only eight per cent of people in prison, they make up 20 per cent of the remand population.

The two publications were completed as the total number of people remanded in prison in England and Wales reached its highest level for at least half a century.