Three official methods of pain-inducing restraint are still in use in children’s secure settings such as young offender institutions (YOTs) and secure training centres (STCs). They involve the infliction of severe pain to the area below a child’s ear, known as “mandibular angle technique”, to thumbs, known as “thumb flexion”, and to the wrist, known as “wrist flexion”. According to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) a fourth technique, the “inverted wrist hold”, also causes “considerable pain and discomfort” and is a pain-inducing technique “in all but name” but it is yet to categorise it as such despite 97 per cent of incidents involving its use in 2022/23. There were 1,258 incidents of pain-inducing restraint used against children in 2022.
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