Policy paper: Independent Restraint Review Panel (IRRP): summary report 2025

Throughout 2025, the Independent Restraint Review Panel made 12 visits to establishments. These included all four Young Offender Institutions housing children and the Secure Training Centre at Oakhill. During those visits we reviewed a total of 111 restraints where Minimising Physical Restraint (MMPR) techniques were used.

We reviewed all incidents where Pain Inducing Techniques (PIT) had been recorded as having been used. We selected the incidents to be reviewed from the master records held locally by establishments. These incidents were selected from a time period spanning broadly back to when we had visited previously and in some instances just before this, meaning that in terms of timing, there is not direct comparability with official statistics.

Across the year, we identified and reviewed 11 incidents when PIT, as defined by MMPR, was recorded as used. In each of these incidents, PIT was used just once. This represents a substantial reduction compared to the previous year when PIT was recorded as having been used 43 times across 25 incidents of restraint. Of the 11 uses of PIT in 2025, we assessed 7 as fully meeting the policy criteria set out in the MMPR manual, that

the application of a pain inducing technique should never be used where a non-painful alternative can safely achieve the same objective

however, the use of a pain inducing technique may be justifiable if that is the only viable and practical way of dealing with a violent incident which poses an immediate risk of serious harm to the young person, other young persons or staff

Where we assessed the criteria for use of PIT as not having been met, our views sometimes aligned with those of the establishment based on their local post incident reviews, but not always.