National Preventive Mechanism Ninth Annual Report 2017–18 Unlike last year, when two deaths in SCHs were reported,12 no deaths were reported this year. In relation to the Secure Centre in Wales, CIW found there was good access to education and leisure facilities, but that safeguarding improvements were needed to ensure children were adequately protected. HIW reported issues in relation to the number and length of restraints of children in one independent hospital in Wales. The number of young people in custody in Scotland remained low during the year. However, Independent Prison Monitors raised concerns about the low levels of young men in HMP/YOI Polmont engaged in purposeful activity, and certain categories of young men not being able to access time outside every day. As a result of this, Monitors noted that some young men spent too much of their day locked in their cells. In Northern Ireland, CJINI and RQIA found a child-centred ethos in place at Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre ( JJC) and reported that there had been good progress in implementing four strategic recommendations for improvement made by inspectors in 2015. Inspectors called for greater alignment between the JJC and the regional secure care centre. Following recommendations made by RQIA, some improvements were seen in care practices for children in regional secure care in Northern Ireland, including additional independent monitoring, increased oversight by the trust and planned audit arrangements to assess core outcomes. Police custody In England and Wales, changes to section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (and related regulations) came into force in December 2017. These changes prevent the use of police stations as a place of safety for children and impose strict conditions on when adults may be held in police stations as a place of safety.13 The changes contributed to the downward trend in the use of police custody as a place of safety, but this remained too high in some forces (often due to factors outside of the control of forces, such as a lack of available mental health beds). Inspectors and independent custody visitors continued to report delays transferring those who required assessment or treatment under the Mental Health Act (again, often due to factors outside of the control of forces), and inspectors reported concerns that children were held overnight in police custody when refused bail due to a lack of alternative accommodation being available, even when custody staff had made considerable efforts to find it. Inspectors also raised significant concerns about the use of force and, in all but two of the forces inspected by HMICFRS and HMI Prisons during the year, governance and oversight of the use of force was inadequate. This led to the organisations writing to all Chief Constables to advise them of the expectation that governance of the use of force be improved. HMI Prisons, HMICFRS and ICVA expressed concern that some forces forcibly removed clothing from detainees as a way of managing self-harm, instead of considering alternatives such 12 Further information can be found in the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Annual Report 2017–18, p.49, available at https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/ppo-prod-storage-1g9rkhjhkjmgw/uploads/2018/10/PPO_Annual-Report-2017-18_ WEB_final.pdf, accessed 20 November 2018. 13 Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 enables a police officer to remove (without a warrant or suspicion of a crime having taken place) someone who they believe to be ‘suffering from mental disorder and to be in immediate need of care or control’ to a place of safety, such as a hospital, or to keep them at such a place. 16