Jon Scott reveals what it's like to be on the discipline frontline.
As a symbol of power over young people, three adults restraining a teenager takes some beating. It provokes uneasiness, which the deaths of 15-year-old Gareth Myatt and 14-year-old Adam Rickwood only heightened. Both young people died within three months of each other in 2004 at privately run secure training centres. Gareth choked to death at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre during the restraint itself. Adam hanged himself a few hours after being restrained at the Hassockfield centre.
Although restraint is also used in young offender institutions and local authority secure children's homes, it is secure training centres that arouse anxiety. The four in England house 250 children, yet staff used restraint 2,574 times between February 2006 and March 2007, according to the Youth Justice Board.
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