2. Seclusion and restraint in New Zealand: findings from the data and visits Summary of findings Overall, data collected by the Ministry of Health and the Department of Corrections on the use of seclusion and restraint in New Zealand revealed a high use.20 The data also clearly showed that ethnic minority groups, in particular Mäori, were overrepresented in seclusion and segregation units.21 This was very concerning and needs to be investigated further. Some of the restraints which were used included forms of mechanical restraint which several jurisdictions, including England and Wales, no longer use. The use of restraint or tie-down beds in prisons and the use of restraint chairs in police custody was particularly concerning, and I was not convinced that these extreme forms of restraint were reserved as a last resort when all else had been tried and failed. Some of the long-term restrictive measures applied to a small but persistent number of people in health and disability facilities were also troubling. Management plans for these individuals appeared to be focused on variants of seclusion and restraint, rather than thinking outside the seclusion room, or 'the box’, to use the old fashioned term for solitary confinement. In prisons, the physical design and material conditions in the so-called ‘At Risk units’, where vulnerable prisoners were housed, were mostly identical to 20 Some of the data examined here is not regularly collated by detaining agencies and was put together especially for this report, using different data sets from different resources, and should accordingly be viewed with caution. 21 For further discussion of disparities in mental health and strategies to reduce the use of seclusion for Mäori see Te Pou’s website: http://www.tepou.co.nz/initiatives/reducing-seclusion-and-restraint/102, and the Mental Health Foundation https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/. 24