Article 39

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Article 39 fights for the rights of children living in state and privately-run institutions, a population of around 80,000 in England. We take our name from the part of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which entitles children and young people who have been abused or neglected to recover in environments where their health, self-respect and dignity are nurtured.

Articles

  • Jun.07.2018: MoJ to review use of pain-inducing restraint on young offenders. The Ministry of Justice is launching a review of the use of pain-inducing restraint across all child prisons and escorting procedures after Article 39, a children’s charity, threatened legal action. MoJ figures show there were 97 incidents last year in which young offenders showed signs of asphyxiation or other danger signs after being restrained, and four serious physical injuries that resulted in hospitalisation. The charity threatened legal action over authorisation for escort officers from the contractor GEOAmey to use pain-inflicting restraint techniques on children as young as 10 when escorting them to and from secure children’s homes. Article 39, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Children's Commissioner for Wales and others have urged the MoJ to banish pain-inducing techniques across the children’s secure estate. In a letter to Emma Lewell-Buck (the shadow children’s minister), the youth justice minister Phillip Lee said that in limited circumstances the use of pain-inducing techniques in YOIs and STCs may be necessary and proportionate to protect a child or others from an immediate risk of serious physical harm. Lee said the MoJ would carry out a full assessment of the use of pain-inducing techniques across the youth penal estate and in the escort environment. He said the review was expected to take 12 months to complete. In 2012 the govt introduced new guidelines on minimising and managing physical restraint (MMPR) for both children and adults. In 2015 the Guardian revealed that an internal risk assessment of restraint techniques had found that certain procedures approved for use against non-compliant children in custody carried a 40-60% chance of causing injuries affecting the child’s breathing or circulation, the consequences of which could be “catastrophic”. A third of the approved MMPR methods are pain-inducing. Publicly available copies of the instructor training manual depicting the techniques contain 182 redactions. Article 39 has been engaged in a protracted legal dispute with the MoJ to bring this material into the public domain. In a recent parliamentary answer to a question tabled by Lewell-Buck, Lee confirmed that the organisations charged with investigating claims of abuse arising from the use of restraint, such as the prisons and probation ombudsman, would not be given access to the MMPR manual. Lewell-Buck responded: “How on earth can anyone know if the rules have been broken if they don’t know what the rules are?" Article 39’s director, Carolyne Willow, said the review was a welcome development but she feared that many in the prison and security sectors would defend the status quo. Eric Allison, Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian.