Snowmail: 'restraint' techniques

Last Modified: 23 Feb 2008
By: Carl Dinnen

Restraint techniques can now be used to punish young people in secure centres.

The "restraint techniques" which staff in secure training centres use to subdue out-of-control inmates can, following a government rule change, now be used to punish those inmates.

Restraint techniques are highly controversial. A teenager died under their application and another killed himself following their use. The Children's Commissioner wasn't consulted on the change and took the government to the high court, where Jack Straw has been roundly criticised by two judges.

Our award-winning (an RTS this week) home affairs correspondent Simon Israel has obtained a training manual which names some of these techniques; something the government, reticent to reveal anything about this, has even denied to a Commons select committee.

Fairtrade - a good deal?

The sugar people Tate & Lyle have become the biggest UK company to make all the stuff you buy from them in the supermarket Fairtrade. Sounds a good thing. But is Fairtrade about any more than assuaging our guilty western consciences? Does it in fact distort the market so much that it makes things worse? Discuss.

Will there be Oscars?

And never mind the actors, it's a British cinematographer who has been nominated for two of tomorrow night's Oscars. A double nomination is a rare thing indeed, so our arts correspondent Nick Glass has been to meet Roger Deakins. Not in the Hollywood hills but in Devon. A visual treat, needless to say.