Restrictive physical interventions involving young people in custody
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Incidents involving young people in custody.
1. Main facts and figures
- in the year ending March 2019, the rate of restrictive physical interventions (when a young person’s movement or mobility is restricted by staff) for both the White and Other than White ethnic groups reached its highest point in the 9 years covered by this data
- in the year ending March 2019, there was a higher rate of restrictive physical interventions among White young people in custody compared with young people from all other ethnic groups combined
- in 7 out of 9 years between April 2010 and March 2019, the rate of restrictive physical interventions for White young people was lower than for young people from all other ethnic groups combined
Things you need to know
The circumstances are different for each restrictive physical intervention. You should avoid simple conclusions or direct comparisons between ethnicities or institutions.
The data counts every restrictive physical intervention. Some young people may be involved in repeated interventions, in which case they will be included in the data more than once. This means that the rates per 100 young people should be considered with some caution.
The data does not include young people in custody whose ethnicity wasn’t known.
What the data measures
This data shows the rate of restrictive physical interventions on young people in custody. The rate is the average number of incidents per month for every 100 people.
A restrictive physical intervention is the use of force on a young person in custody, with the aim of restricting their movement or mobility.
The data includes young people being held in:
- young offender institutions
- secure children’s homes
- secure training centres
‘Young people’ are 10 to 17 years old. The data may also include some 18 year olds who remain in youth custody for a short time.
For each financial year, the data in the table shows:
- the average number of restrictive physical interventions in custody per month
- the average rate of restrictive physical interventions per 100 young people in custody per month
If a young person has multiple restrictive physical interventions, each one is counted as a separate incident.
The ethnic categories used in this data
The number of young people involved in restrictive physical interventions was too small to make reliable generalisations about specific ethnic categories.
Because of this, we show data for 2 ethnic groups:
- White – White ethnic groups (including White British and White ethnic minorities)
- Other – all other ethnic minorities
2. By ethnicity
| White | Other than White | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | White Rate per 100 young people per month | White Average number per month | Other than White Rate per 100 young people per month | Other than White Average number per month |
| 2010/11 | 19.1 | 364.6 | 23.8 | 231.3 |
| 2011/12 | 22.5 | 387.9 | 30.0 | 312.3 |
| 2012/13 | 23.5 | 324.6 | 24.8 | 213.1 |
| 2013/14 | 29.1 | 298.3 | 28.2 | 176.9 |
| 2014/15 | 25.8 | 223.7 | 32.6 | 179.2 |
| 2015/16 | 25.0 | 192.8 | 32.0 | 168.2 |
| 2016/17 | 29.8 | 194.8 | 35.8 | 182.3 |
| 2017/18 | 37.0 | 243.1 | 39.4 | 207.4 |
| 2018/19 | 47.2 | 273.1 | 46.3 | 247.0 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Restrictive physical interventions involving young people in custody By ethnicity Summary
The data shows that:
- in the year ending March 2019, there were 47.2 restrictive physical interventions per 100 White young people in custody per month on average
- there were 46.3 incidents per month per 100 young people from all other ethnic groups combined
- in 7 out of 9 years between April 2010 and March 2019, White people had a lower rate of restrictive physical interventions than people from all other ethnic groups combined
- in the year ending March 2019, the rates for both ethnic groups reached their highest point in the 9 years covered by this data
- in the 9 years from April 2010 to March 2019, the rate for White young people increased from 19.1 to 47.2 per 100 people
- the rate for people from all other ethnic groups combined went up from 23.8 to 46.3 per 100 people
3. Methodology
Young people in custody report their own ethnicity which staff then record.
The number of young people in custody is counted at the start of each month. Figures also include new admissions during the month. Averages are taken across a 12-month period.
Rounding
Average numbers of interventions and rates per 100 have been rounded to 1 decimal point. All calculations have been made using unrounded figures.
See the Youth justice statistics for 2018 to 2019 for unrounded figures and the percentages calculated from them.
Related publications
Quality and methodology information
Further technical information
Figures published before the release of the 2018 to 2019 youth justice statistics may have been revised since their original publication.
4. Data sources
Source
Youth justice statistics: 2018 to 2019
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Ministry of Justice
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The data is used by the government to develop, monitor and evaluate criminal justice policy for young offenders in England and Wales.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: measure, ethnicity, year, value, numerator, denominator