Can i use handcuffs

UK, remember your settings and improve government services. We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services. You can change your cookie settings at any time. This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives. Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. There is no law in the UK that prevents civilians carrying handcuffs.

SIA licensed security operatives have no legal powers over and above other civilians. Ben Davis April 11, When can handcuffs be used? What are fluffy handcuffs used for? Is it illegal to have real handcuffs?

Do handcuffs have the same key? Why do police handcuff in front? Can you swear at the police? Why handcuffs are covered? Can you buy real handcuffs? Can civilians use handcuffs? Can security guards handcuff you? Can SIA Security carry handcuffs? Why are handcuffs pink? Can you carry handcuffs in NYC? Can you carry handcuffs in NJ? Where can I buy handcuffs in NYC?

It could be argued that handcuffing a female prisoner during childbirth, or the handcuffing of a mentally ill patient during a hospital or dental visit, or even the handcuffing of a prisoner in court are all degrading and humiliating circumstances in violation of Article 3.

However, a balance between Articles 2 and 3 in the form of a suitable and sufficient risk assessment must be undertaken in order to justify either using or not using handcuffs. This must also be backed up by clear policy and staff training so that they may use their discretion competently.

Article 5 covers the right to liberty and security of a person. People have the right to not be detained or arrested unless it is authorised by law. This refers to tools, PPE and anything required in carrying out a job. The Act goes on to state appropriate training must be carried out as well. How does Manual Handling come into a discussion about handcuffs or restraint? Well, when we restrain a person we are using physical effort, or manual handling to restrain them. Furthermore, the restrained person can be identified as the load, and can be a potentially damaging hazard, especially when resisting.

So, when a restrained person is resisting to the point of staff losing control, the load has become uneven and a problem for manual handling. We can see by the examples highlighted that as security operatives we have a duty to carry and if necessary, use handcuffs under certain conditions.

Failure to do so may result in injury of the restraining staff, members of the public and the individual under restraint with the litigation coming down squarely on the restraining staff. A dynamic risk assessment along with conscious justification should be enough to make an educated decision.

A copy of the excerpt is available from me on request. Keeping People Safe. I have said before that restraint is very often shrouded in misinformation, misinterpretation, and grey areas and is an especially emotive subject when it involves children.

This can easily lead to decision makers making incorrect, and even dangerous choices when creating well intended provisions for the safety of pupils and staff. But this is not an isolated reason why we have seen unprecedented attention within the media reflecting a growing concern about restraint in schools. Mismanagement is generally a result of systematic failings as opposed to finding a single cause.

Now, please excuse the sub-title of this piece, but I truly hope the investigation is thorough and shines a massive light on the realities of restraint in schools not only for the pupil but also to reflect the physical and emotional cost for both teachers and senior managers.

A Reactive Culture There seems to be a reactive culture when addressing restraint in schools. It is often the case that management will only acknowledge the requirement of positive handling training after they are faced with violence. But by this point, the damage is already done. The child is mismanaged, and staff are put in the untenable situation of not being fully equipped to manage the situation safely. Towards a Proactive Culture But would it not be better to proactively prevent these incidents in the first place?

It is very rare that an individual child will demonstrate behaviour that has made restraint necessary without warning and danger signs. Additionally, the vast majority of children who have been restrained within schools have been restrained on a number of occasions, and if recorded properly, these incidents will usually have a common pattern of behaviour and distinct triggers.

Why is this important? Central to all restraint policies should be ways to reduce the incidents of restraint and so maximise the safety of pupils and staff.

How do we do that? This information can feed into a Positive Behaviour Support plan, thus aiding us in proactively managing a child and their experiences.

Furthermore, there is actually a legal requirement for schools to have adequate reporting procedures in place should any level of force be used against a child. How do we know what these triggers are? We are in a better position to understand challenging behaviour when we can unpack the circumstances in which it arose, but we can only do that with accurate reporting of incidents and information sharing.

We might ask ourselves the following questions; What was the build up to this incident? What happened? Where did it happen? When did it happen? What did you do? Why did you take that course of action? This helps build a picture of the entire incident through the eyes of the staff member in question. By collating a number of reports, it becomes easier to identify patterns in behaviour, environmental impact on the child at each incident, if a specific individual is the cause for certain types of behaviour and so on.

The need for information sharing The sharing of positive behaviour support plans and risk assessments is vital to ensure the safety of the pupil and others that may work with that pupil on a day to day basis. If we keep the information recorded but locked in a filing cabinet, we might just as well have not done the risk assessment in the first place because the frontline staff are not aware of it. A teacher I had a discussion with recently had been assaulted by pupil that had been transferred from another school and had a risk assessment and care plan specific to him.

Unfortunately, the teacher in question had not been made aware of the care plan or risk assessment relating to the child, so she treated him as she would every other child in her class.

Once the incident with the child had been resolved and the related investigation had begun, only then did she find out about the care plan and risk assessment.

Had she been privy to this information, she would have probably managed the incident as per the care plan had she known about it. Although this is just one example, I have been given a whole range of reasons why information sharing was withheld. This one for me is hugely negligent, both on the behalf of the staff but also the pupil.

By all means, allow the pupil a new beginning, but the responsibility to safety has not diminished in anyway, and until it can be suitably demonstrated the challenging behaviour no longer poses a threat, the risk assessment should stay in effect. Justifying your actions to others Reporting is not just about informing risk assessments or positive behaviour support plans.

A robust reporting mechanism is powerful tool to collate evidence to underpin why as a teacher, you responded in a particular way, and the decision-making process behind that action. Technically, if we restrain an individual we are assaulting them and restricting their liberty, which is a breach of their human rights.

With the creation of an accurate and detailed report. Report writing also documents the particulars immediately after the incident.