Last week an independent investigation exposed serious allegations of international human rights breaches at young offenders’ institutions in the UK. One example was a teenage prisoner with a serious mental health condition who, it is claimed, was placed in solitary confinement inside a number of different British jails during a period of six months, causing him considerable distress and psychological damage. Prison inspection reports suggest some children have been driven to self-harm due to the severe emotional distress of solitary confinement. On Tuesday a legal challenge began over a boy locked up for 23 hours a day in a young offenders’ prison in west London. See: