Prisons: Restraint Techniques

(asked on 12th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times have rigid handcuffs been used in each prison in each of the last 12 months.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 19th March 2020

Rigid bar handcuffs are being rolled out to all band 3-5 staff in the adult male estate.

Data on the number of times that rigid bar handcuffs have been used is recorded locally. As we do not currently hold this information centrally, we are unable to provide the number of times that these have been used in prisons. However, we are piloting the use of a Digital Tool for establishments to record this and other Use of Force data, which will improve our ability to interrogate and extract any relevant data, such as this.

Rigid bar handcuffs are only one of the tools we are giving prison officers to help them do their job more safely. This also includes body worn cameras and PAVA spray.

Reticulating Splines