Children’s prison staff in England and Wales to be banned from pain-inducing restraints

MoJ policy says such restraints must only be used in emergency scenarios

Staff working in children's prisons are to be banned from using techniques that deliberately cause pain, except in emergency scenarios to save life or to prevent life-changing injury.

The new Ministry of Justice policy, for England and Wales, which follows a review completed by the now chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor in 2020, will be effective from February 2024. It states that it is never acceptable to deliberately cause pain when a non-painful alternative can safely achieve the same objective".