02/11/2021 00:01:00
Commenting on the findings of today’s (2 November) report on conditions at HMP Hull by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust said:
“At the very start of the pandemic, the government took a secret decision to accelerate the rollout of ‘PAVA’ spray—a chemical incapacitant weapon—to all closed adult male prisons. When challenged in court, the prison service gave repeated undertakings about the central scrutiny that would be applied to make sure that PAVA was properly used. But yet again, the inspectorate have found that PAVA has been used without justification and that local safeguards are not working. PAVA use has been unnecessary, disproportionate and unsafe, and it’s taken the independent inspectorate to notice.
“The prison service is not in control of the weapon it’s put into officers’ hands. The rollout has to stop, and PAVA must be withdrawn from the prisons where the standards promised just aren’t being met.”
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15/01/2021 12:00:00
We have today written to the prisons minister requesting more information about PAVA use in prisons. As we reported last year, we gave expert evidence in support of litigation brought by an individual prisoner and also supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This produced some important outcomes putting on record commitments from the ministry. Our letter to the minister asks for evidence that those commitments are now being met. But it also repeats the request for other data which will allow for proper external scrutiny, and makes proposals to strengthen the central and local governance of use of force more generally.
Click 'read more' for the full story.
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22/12/2020 10:00:00
The Prison Reform Trust provided expert evidence to an Equality and Human Rights Commission funded case, challenging the Secretary of State for Justice’s decision to make PAVA spray available in prisons during the coronavirus pandemic, before agreed safeguards were in place.
The EHRC has now published a summary of the case, and as it points out, there are some important outcomes from it. The fact that the commitments the prison service have made are public and will produce more information that we and others can scrutinise are both important, as is the EHRC’s continuing interest in making sure the commitments are met.
We will publish a more detailed piece in the new year about the litigation, the questions that remain and the way we intend to maintain a close scrutiny of PAVA and its impact in future.
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16/06/2020 17:00:00
EQUAL—a National Independent Advisory Group that works collaboratively to address the poorer outcomes experienced by BAME and Muslim people in the criminal justice system—has written to prisons minister Lucy Frazer today to express its concerns about the roll out of PAVA incapacitant spray.
The letter highlights the inadequacy of current safeguards to prevent the disproportionate use of PAVA against against BAME people in prison, as well as the persistent, unexplained, problem of racially disproportionate use of force in prisons.
Click here to read a copy of the letter.
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27/05/2020 11:00:00
The Prison Reform Trust has been engaged in long-standing dialogue with the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service regarding the decision to roll out PAVA incapacitant spray to prisons across the adult male closed estate.
Copies of all of the correspondence can be read by clicking 'read more'
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28/04/2020 12:00:00
Following the publication of the Ministry of Justice report, Tackling racial disparity in the criminal justice system: 2020 in February this year, the HMPPS External Advice and Scrutiny Panel (EASP)—established following David Lammy's independent review in 2017—wrote to raise its concerns that it had been wrongly represented.
The report did not make clear that the EASP continued to have concerns that safeguards to address racially disproportionate outcomes in use of force were inadequate, and that they were very likely to persist in the use of PAVA incapacitant spray.
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