MoJ launches review of pain-inducing restraint on young offenders
Joe Lepper
Monday, December 18, 2017
The Ministry of Justice has launched a review into the use of pain-inducing restraint on children being escorted to secure children's homes and secure training centres.
The move comes as children's rights campaign group Article 39 said it is considering seeking a judicial review into the use of such techniques when children are being escorted to secure settings.
Techniques designed to deliberately inflict pain, which can currently be used by escorts, include twisting and bending children's arms and wrists, or pinning them to the ground.
Such restraint techniques have been banned within secure children's homes since 2011, but are permitted for escorts taking them to homes and other secure settings. Staff in secure training centres and young offender institutions are also able to use the techniques.
Article 39 has now written to the Ministry of Justice outlining its case for banning the use by escorts of such techniques, which it says can cause severe mental and physical harm to children.
"The policy cannot be justified," states Article 39's submission to the MoJ.
"Children are taught from an early age not to get into strangers' vehicles. The escorting experience, where a child has no choice but to travel alone with adults they do not know in a locked vehicle, possibly in handcuffs, has the potential to be uniquely frightening," it adds.
"Were escort custody officers to use, or threaten to use, a pain-induction technique in breach of the law and policy, there are no independent witnesses for the child.
"The experience could prove to be deeply traumatic. It could diminish the child's confidence and propensity to ask for help once in custody. This is a serious child protection matter."
The contract for escorting young offenders to secure settings is held by GeoAmey. Although their escorts have been trained to deploy pain-inducing restraint techniques since last year, the MoJ has said that as yet none have used them.
To illustrate the effect of such techniques on young people in secure settings, Article 39's submission details the death of 14-year-old Adam Rickwood, who hanged himself in Hassockfield secure training centre in Durham in 2004.
Before his death, he wrote to his solicitor describing how staff had jumped on him, bent his arms behind his back and hit him in the nose, which then started bleeding.
