United Kingdom

Brickbat: Pint-Sized Prison

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A girl in the United Kingdom's Wetherby Young Offender Institution twice had her clothes removed while being restrained by an all-male team of prison officers, according to a report by the Inspectorate of Prisons. The girl was reportedly trying to use her clothes to harm herself. Wetherby is a correctional institution for people aged 15–18. The report found 24 children were strip-searched in one 12-month period, half of them forcibly; pain-inducing restraint techniques were used nine times over the same period. The report said that not one use of such techniques was found to be appropriate by an independent review panel. It also discovered that one use of the restraint injured a child, but this was not reported to officials.