(TOR) system and provided a good level of detail about events leading to their
use. However, on closer examination of a sample of incident reports, it was not
always indicated on the form that de-escalation and less restrictive options were
attempted first and it was not always clear why the most restrictive form of
restraint, in particular the restraint chair, were selected in preference to other
forms. In this context it should be noted that the UN Committee Against Torture
(CAT) has recommended that the use of restraint chairs be abolished altogether as
“their use almost invariably leads to breaches of article 16 of the Convention.”40
c. The use of seclusion and restraint in New Zealand:
common issues and concerns
In addition to the more specific findings relating to individual facilities discussed
above, a number of common themes were evident across several types of
institutions. These are addressed in the following paragraphs.
Seclusion and restraints were not always used as emergency last resort tools
for the shortest time possible.
The reasons for placing any one individual in seclusion/segregation, or restraining
them, were not always clear, nor was it clear that alternative, less restrictive
options were explored first. Distressed behaviours were sometimes interpreted as
aggressive ones, and responded to as such. A number of prisons and health and
disability units across the country housed individuals who were subjected to very
long periods in seclusion and/or restraint. Not only were solitary confinement and
restraint not reserved as last resort short-term options in these cases, but they
appeared to have became the default position and were applied for prolonged
times with no clear end in sight.
Examples include a man who had been held in isolative, segregated conditions
in a long-term health and disability unit for over six years, two men at another
health and disability unit, both also kept in similar conditions for over six
years and one of whom was also restrained in a body belt, and a self-harming
prisoner who had been restrained in a tie down bed for over a month as part
of a ‘behavioural management plan’. For the individuals concerned, prolonged
seclusion and /or restraint (and often both) had thus become a chronic state
rather than an emergency short term response to an acute situation. Decisions
40 UN Committee against Torture, for example, 23rd and 24th Sessions, Report of the Committee against
Torture: Consideration of reports submitted by States Parties under article 19 of the Convention: United
States of America, May 2000, A/55/44 , para. 180(c). Article 16(1) of the CAT reads: “Each State Party
shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I”.
42