ESSEX PAPER 3: INITIAL GUIDANCE ON THE INTERPRETATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UN NELSON MANDELA RULES Chapter 6 379 Incident management Issues/rules covered: • Safety and security (Rule 1 last sentence) • Complaints (Rule 56 and 57(1)) • Protection against reprisals (Rule 57(2) and (3)) • Cases of death or serious injury (Rules 68, 69, 70, 72) • Investigations (Rule 71) • Use of force (Rule 82, Basic Principles on Use of Force and Firearms) Safety and security The last sentence of Rule 1 establishes the general principle that safety and security must be ensured at all times, as well as respect for prisoners’ inherent dignity and value as human beings. It calls for a balance between the two principles. The Essex group affirmed that personal safety in prisons underpins the SMR as a whole and is essential to upholding human dignity. The duty to maintain safety is inextricably linked to other provisions such as: the use of force and restraints, searches, the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other ill-treatment), and the protection of prisoners at risk of discrimination or abuse. It is well documented that a lack of safety and security in prisons can lead to grave threats to the life and dignity of prisoners.380 A loss of safety undermines dignity, but measures intended to maintain safety must also uphold the right to dignity. Both the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions have pointed out that ‘the State assumes a heightened duty of protection by severely limiting an inmate’s freedom of movement and capacity for self-defence’.381 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also maintained that the state has particular obligations to protect the dignity of prisoners, their life, health, personal integrity and other rights.382 This chapter was authored by Andrea Huber, Penal Reform International, with the support of Sharon Critoph. 379  Open-Ended Intergovernmental Expert Group on the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, Second Report of Essex Expert Group on the Review of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, prepared by Penal Reform International/Essex University, 20 March 2014, UNODC/CCPCJ/EG.6/2014/NGO.7, para. 5 (Essex 2). 380  UN General Assembly, 61st Session, Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Note by the Secretary-General, 5 September 2006, A/61/311, para.51. 381  Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Human Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty in the Americas, 31 December 2011, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.Doc 64, para 293 (IACHR Report on Persons Deprived of Liberty) (citing Report No. 118/10, Case 12.680, Merits, Rafael Arturo Pacheco Teruel et al., Honduras, October 22, 2010, para. 63). 382  Penal Reform International and the Essex Human Rights Centre | 98