Out of Trouble is working to change things at a national and local level to reduce the number of children and young people who are imprisoned in the UK. 

We do this by collecting and publishing evidence on the inappropriate imprisonment of children and young people (see the Learn section of the site for more information), lobbying the government and Parliamentarians for legislative change, and seeking to influence others in the youth justice system, as well as by working to raise awareness of the overuse of custody, and the vulnerabilities of many of the children we imprison, through the media, civil society groups, and others.

In addition, much of our effort is focused on what happens on the ground, and we work closely with local authorities, councillors and youth justice practitioners to better understand how the system works, to identify the levers for prioritising youth justice, and to promote examples of best practice from around the country. We also use our knowledge of the interface between national policy and local practice to lobby government, at a national, regional and local level, for change.

When we can, we also work with other charities who believe that the youth justice system should treat children who offend as children, first and foremost. To that end, the Prison Reform Trust is a member of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice (SCYJ). Through the SCYJ, we are working on: raising the custody threshold, to make it harder for sentencers to send a child to prison; the devolution of custody budgets, to incentivise local authorities to do more to prevent children being imprisoned; and the funding of social workers in young offender institutions.

You can find further information on how the SCYJ works, and who its members are, here.