ESSEX PAPER 3: INITIAL GUIDANCE ON THE INTERPRETATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UN NELSON MANDELA RULES Training of prison staff Training specifically on issues relating to safety and security are captured in Rule 76(1c), and it is noted that, ‘at a minimum’, training shall include the concept of dynamic security as well as ‘the use of force and instruments of restraint, and the management of violent offenders’, with due consideration given to ‘preventive and defusing techniques, such as negotiation and mediation’. Rule 75(3) clarifies that training courses need to be provided not only prior to entering service, but continuously ‘with a view to maintaining and improving the knowledge and professional capacity’ of personnel. Rule 82(2) further notes that ‘prison staff shall be given special physical training to enable them to restrain aggressive prisoners’. In order to implement the SMR, in particular on proportionate use of force, arms and restraints, it is vital that prison staff are trained on non-violent means of resolving conflicts, and receive practical training on a range of use of force techniques, from empty hand techniques412 to the use of weaponry, to ensure that they are able to use no more force than is strictly necessary. Training should include explicit emphasis on human rights, and how to operationalise human rights. It should also include material on the risks and human rights concerns associated with the use of particular weapons/force options. As some use of force options and techniques pose a greater risk than others, training should ensure that officers are given a level of training commensurate with the complexity of the technique in question, and the risks it may pose. Training should incorporate real life scenarios, practical exercises and scenario-based assessments, ensuring that officers can practically use the skills they have been taught and respond to a range of different circumstances. Delivering detailed modules on the following aspects was mentioned as a good practice: avoiding danger, conflict prevention, defusing the situation, controlling the situation, necessity, guidance on decision whether use of force is necessary, reasonability in the circumstances, and using the least amount of force possible.413 Regular system assessments Implementation of safety and security also implies that prison administrations take a step back from the daily management of the prison to reflect, identify and resolve challenges and recurring issues in relation to safety and security. Periodic assessments enable the prison administration to identify questions of a systemic nature that require regulation or intervention by central authorities and that should be dealt with by those responsible for the prison system as a whole.414 The importance of periodic reassessments of fire safety specifically has been highlighted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which recommended that the fire department should be requested to ‘periodically inspect and deliver assessments on the appropriateness of the fire safety and prevention measures’ to prisons ‘nationwide’.415 ‘Empty hand techniques’ is an umbrella term used to refer to force that is inflicted without any kind of weapon or equipment.  This can include, for example, punches, kicks, ground pins, strikes and pressure point techniques. 412  HM Prison Service, Prison Service Order 1600: Use of Force, London, 2005 (amended 2015). 413  See also UNODC, Handbook on prisoner file management, New York, 2008, p. 44, on the importance of processes and procedures to ‘monitor the performance of various components of the organization in helping achieve the strategic objectives of the institution’. 414  IACHR Report on Honduras, para. 162 (10), page 62. 415  Penal Reform International and the Essex Human Rights Centre | 106