Youth Justice Board (YJB) statistics, placed in the House of Commonslibrary, show that for the three months between April and June 2009restraint was used 535 times in England's four secure trainingcentres.
This represents a 12 per cent increase on the first three months of2009, when 478 incidents were reported, and is the highest quarterlyfigure since October to December 2007, when there were 654incidents.
The rise comes more than a year after the Labour government pledged toreduce the use of restraint following an independent review prompted bythe death of two boys in separate restraint incidents.
Penelope Gibbs, director of the Prison Reform Trust's campaign to reducechild imprisonment, said: "We have been talking about restraint foryears and there has been a commitment to reduce its use, but the wheelsseem to be going incredibly slowly," she said. "We need some action andwe need to see what the strategies are. We need fewer children in prisonbecause the staff-to-child ratios are key in the use of restraint."
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