Manual for Private Juvenile Prison Guards: ‘Drive Fingers Into Young Person’s Groin’

Believe it or not, I’m certified by the State of New York to physically restrain children.

When I was young, I considered a career working with kids, and got a job in a residence for children and teens with severe emotional disturbances in Brooklyn. Most were wards of the state, had had incredibly crappy lives and many were prone to violence. It was not easy.

We were trained. The object of a restraint was to get the kid on the ground in a bear-hug, controlling his or her arms along the way. Hitting them, it should go without saying, was not kosher, and it was made quite clear that if you lost your cool you could land in jail.

We were always supposed to intervene with more than one staffer if possible. But once, in the TV room, I had to restrain a slippery (and punchy) 12 year-old. As I was doing so, he got out of my grip, crawled under a couch and cut himself on a piece of wire. The other kid in the room — who had some brain damage if I recall — immediately said that I’d thrown a punch. There was an investigation, the police were called in, and I might have been fired, or prosecuted, if the boy who’d been cut hadn’t (after cooling off a bit) told the authorities in no uncertain terms what had happened.

All of that is a long and meandering way of saying why I found this story of institutional child abuse out of Britain so shocking —  it was sanctioned by the very authorities who are supposed to be regulating how messed up kids are disciplined.

Shocking details of techniques used to inflict pain deliberately onchildren in privately run jails have been revealed for the first time in a government document obtained by the Observer.

Some of the restraint and self-defence measures approved by the Ministry of Justice include ramming knuckles into ribs and raking shoes down the shins. Other extraordinary passages in the previously secret manual, Physical Control in Care, authorise staff to:

■ “Use an inverted knuckle into the trainee’s sternum and drive inward and upward.”

■ “Continue to carry alternate elbow strikes to the young person’s ribs until a release is achieved.”

■ “Drive straight fingers into the young person’s face, and then quickly drive the straightened fingers of the same hand downwards into the young person’s groin area.”

The disclosure of the prison service manual follows a five-year freedom of information battle. The manual was condemned last night by campaigners as “state authorisation of institutionalised child abuse”.

Published by the HM Prison Service in 2005 and classified as a restricted government document, the manual guides staff on what restraint and self-defence techniques are authorised for use on children as young as 12 in secure training centres. The centres are purpose-built facilities for young offenders up to the age of 17 and run by private firms under government contracts.

Instructions to staff warn that the techniques risk giving children a “fracture to the skull” and “temporary or permanent blindness caused by rupture to eyeball or detached retina”.

The guidance, designed to cope with unruly children, also acknowledges that the measures could cause asphyxia. One passage, explaining how to administer a head-hold on children, adds that “if breathing is compromised the situation ceases to be a restraint and becomes a medical emergency”.

Carolyne Willow, national co-ordinator of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE), which led the campaign for disclosure following the deaths of two teenage boys in secure training centres, said: “The manual is deeply disturbing and stands as state authorisation of institutionalised child abuse. What made former ministers believe that children as young as 12 could get so out of control so often that staff should be taught how to ram their knuckles into their rib cages? Would we allow paediatricians, teachers or children’s home staff to be trained in how to deliberately hurt and humiliate children?”

Edited for clarity.