The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Distraction Techniques

Those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear; so if, as the Ministry of Justice claims, "the use of restraint is always a last resort" when we decide to throw our children (our own British children, asylum seekers please note) in the clink, it is difficult to see why it has taken a five-year fight under the Freedom of Information Act for the almost wholly innocent details of the techniques used in such restraint to be made public. After all, what more effective means to teach that crime does not pay than to "use an inverted knuckle into the trainee's (sic) sternum and drive inward and upward"? How better to act in loco parentis than to "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"? When an unarmed, defenceless and unsuspecting employee of a private prison company is lethally gripped by a violent twelve-year-old, what more acceptable method to protect the shareholders' interests than to "carry alternate elbow strikes to the young person's ribs until a release is achieved"? The ministerially approved manual in which these pedagogical techniques are listed is classified as a "restricted government document", doubtless as a result of what the likes of Polly Toynbee reproach as New Labour's excessive modesty about all the Good Things it has done while in office. At times, the manual veers perilously close to Health and Safety Gone Mad, as when it warns that some of the recommended teaching aids place trainees at risk of "fracture to the skull" or "temporary or permanent blindness caused by rupture to eyeball or detached retina", while warning that "if breathing is compromised the situation ceases to be a restraint and becomes a medical emergency". The details of what it would take before the situation becomes assault, grievous bodily harm or corporate manslaughter appear to have been omitted from the manual in order to spare the feelings of the child-care professionals involved.

2 Comments:

  • At 10:24 pm , Blogger Giovanni Tiso said...

    The majority of your posts lately makes me take the Lord's name in vain. Eventually I might have to bill you for the time spent on the expiatory Hail Marys.

     
  • At 2:52 am , Blogger Philip said...

    And the very best of luck with it.

     

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