The Ombudsman’s Children’s Division monitors young people’s conditions in state and local prisons in 2025

Publiceret 23-01-2025

Every year, a number of young people aged 15-17 are imprisoned in state or local prisons.

During its 2025 monitoring visits, the Ombudsman’s Children’s Division will focus on the conditions and environment for the young people who are placed in Prison and Probation Service institutions in which there are primarily adults.

‘Young people who are placed in a state or local prison are presumably in an especially vulnerable and exposed position. With our monitoring visits, we will contribute to the young people being treated with dignity, consideration and in accordance with their rights’, says temporary Parliamentary Ombudsman Henrik Bloch Andersen.

Young people in Prison and Probation Service institutions

Young people aged 15-17 can be placed in state or local prisons for various reasons.

In connection with an arrest by the police, they can be placed in a local prison until the court has determined if they are going to be released. They can also be placed in Prison and Probation Service institutions as prisoners in custody. Or they might have gotten a sentence that they have to serve.

According to the Prison and Probation Service’s public statistics, 139 young people aged 15-17 were placed in state and local prisons in 2023. 

In connection with the monitoring visits, the Ombudsman is, among other things, going to look at the institutions’ use of force, solitary confinement and exclusion of the young people from association and also about information to the young people about their rights. The Ombudsman is also going to focus on the institutions’ programmes on education, occupation and leisure time activities and also healthcare matters.

Further details:

Director of International Relations, Klavs Kinnerup Hede

kkh@ombudsmanden.dk

Facts

Theme for the Children’s Division’s monitoring visits in 2025

The theme for the Children’s Division’s monitoring in 2025 is young people in Prison and Probation Service institutions. Focus will be on: 

  • Use of force, observation and security cells
  • Solitary confinement and exclusion from association
  • Placement, association and other relations
  • Information about rights etc.
  • Education, occupation, leisure time and sector cooperation
  • Healthcare-related conditions.

Among other things, the theme of the year will follow up on an investigation, which the Children’s Division conducted in 2017 about ‘Young people in secure care residential institutions, local prisons and state prisons’. 

Generally on the Ombudsman’s monitoring visits

The Parliamentary Ombudsman regularly carries out monitoring visits to public and private institutions, especially where people are or can be deprived of their liberty.

  • The monitoring visits are carried out in cooperation with DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, which contribute with medical and human rights expertise.
  • The Ombudsman’s Children’s Division conducts monitoring visits to institutions for children.
  • Every year, a theme is chosen for the year’s monitoring visits to both institutions for children and institutions for adults.
  • Every year, a report is made in which the Ombudsman summarises and presents the most significant results of the year’s thematic visits.
  • The Ombudsman regularly publishes which institutions etc. he has visited, and he also publishes the concluding letters to the institutions (in Danish).

Read more about the Ombudsman’s monitoring visits