National Preventive Mechanism Fifth Annual Report 2013–14 strengthen approaches to monitoring the use of force and restraint and share best practice. Effective monitoring of use of force and restraint is essential to preventing the ill‑treatment of detainees, and to safeguarding their rights and well-being. After concerns about repeated deaths in all forms of detention following restraint, and the findings of subsequent investigations that similar concerns had arisen in many of these cases, the Joint Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody (for England and Wales), on which several NPM members are represented, developed and endorsed a set of ‘Common principles of restraint’ (see Appendix Five). These common principles were developed on the basis of broad consultation, and set out key principles for the safe management of restraint.36 The principles were presented to the full membership of the NPM at its business meeting in November 2013 by Professor Richard Shepherd, an independent expert member of the Independent Advisory Panel to the Ministerial Board. NPM members agreed to use the principles as a basis for developing practice in their work and in discussion with inspected bodies to establish common ground on whether the shared principles could be adopted through governance, management and training mechanisms. Restraint and use of force are key issues for all members’ regular inspection and regulatory activities and examples of the work undertaken during the year are set out as follows. Police custody HMIC and HMI Prisons continued to report on their concerns that the use of force in police custody was not being adequately monitored nor the data collected and analysed to inform training needs and custodial practice. These concerns were shared by the Advisory Panel to the Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody. Both bodies were also concerned to find that custody staff did not routinely complete available use of force forms when detainees were physically restrained and, in some cases, did not perceive their intervention as a use of force. As custody staff also received no feedback from their use of force forms, they generally believed that they were used exclusively for personal safety training, rather than as a safeguard that force was used as a last resort and with the minimum force necessary. More positively, HMICS found that arresting officers and custody staff in Scotland were taking a proportionate and risk-assessed approach to use of force and restraint, and incidents were being recorded. However there was a lack of management information and trend monitoring. Children In its visits to the youth justice secure estate, OCC requested data on restraints and viewed CCTV footage of restraints, raising any concerns subsequently with the detaining institution and the Youth Justice Board. A new approach to behaviour management, ‘minimising and managing physical restraint’ (MMPR), was in the process of being rolled out across Young offenders Institutions (YOIs) and STCs. HMI Prisons reported its concern that some young people could be hurt unintentionally because staff would not be able to apply the new techniques properly in a real-life situation, as well as concerns around 36 http://iapdeathsincustody.independent.gov.uk/news/iap%E2%80%99s-common-principles-on-the-safer-use-of-restraintpublished-today/ 28