Alex Mistlin reports for The Guardian that, according to the government’s annual youth justice statistics, self-harm and use of restraint are increasingly commonplace in the youth justice system and a record high of more than half of young people in custody are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.
Since 2018-19, a significant rise in the overall use of pain-inducing restraint techniques has been noted, with the number of restrictive physical interventions increasing by 19% and the number of self-harm incidents in child prisons by 35%.
The number of severe injuries suffered by children as a consequence of self-harm incidents has also risen.
In total, there were nearly 7800 use-of-force incidents across the three secure training centres and five young offender institutions (average of 82.5 incidents per 100 children and young people a month).
The number of BAME young people who received a caution or sentence rose, with 10% more Asian children receiving a caution or sentence compared with 2018-19.
The proportion of black children cautioned or sentenced has been increasing over the past 10 years and has doubled. At the same time, the average custodial sentence length given to children has increased from 11.3 to 18.6 months.