Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times force been used on (a) adult women and (b) female youth prisoners in each year since 2010.

The information requested is not held centrally for adult women. The Ministry of Justice does not hold use of force data that covers the whole time period requested for adult women.

Data for girls, children and young people can be found within the Safety in the Childrens and Young Persons Secure Estate publication (2022/23 only) Use of force data is published annually with 2023/24 published in July 2024. For years prior to this, there is information on use of force (Restrictive Physical Intervention only) held in the Youth Justice Annual Statistics.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/youth-justice-statistics

The use of force is only to be used when other methods not involving force have been tried and failed or are unlikely to succeed. Officers must then complete a report, outlining why the use of force was necessary, reasonable and proportionate. Prisons and Youth Custody establishments monitor the use of force and take action where there is inappropriate use or poor practice.