ESSEX PAPER 3: INITIAL GUIDANCE ON THE INTERPRETATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UN NELSON MANDELA RULES Meaningful activities and mental health Occupying prisoners’ time with purposeful activity serves not only the rehabilitative purpose of imprisonment, but also reduces risks of violence. It has been established that meaningful activities keep prisoners engaged and channel their energy into constructive activities, ‘reducing their motivation to engage in disorder’. At the same time such programmes allow prison staff to establish positive relationships with prisoners and contributes to dynamic security.416 Rule 4(2) recalls the rehabilitative purpose of imprisonment and calls on prison administrators to offer education, vocational training and work. The European Committee to Prevent Torture (CPT), for example, has stressed the importance of a ‘satisfactory programme of activities (…) as diverse as possible (education, sport, work of vocational value, etc.)’, including and in particular in high security units, stating that ‘[i]t can do much to counter the deleterious effects upon a prisoner’s personality of living in the bubble-like atmosphere of such a unit’.417 Use of force and arms The Essex group noted that guidance in the revised SMR on the use of force and arms remains limited as this area was not updated in the course of the review. It is noteworthy that the only provision relating to the use of force and to arms is contained in the section on ‘institutional personnel’ rather than in any of the substantive sections. However, the SMR are supplemented by the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials,418 and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (BPUFF). 419 Both of these instruments enshrine the requirements of prescription by law, necessity and proportionality and call on law enforcement420 to, ‘as far as possible, apply non-violent means’. The use of force and restraints is documented as a high risk situation for ill-treatment of prisoners, and ‘as such call[s] for specific safeguards’.421 The experts noted that often the use of force, restraints and arms (including firearms) are linked, and recommended that more guidance is compiled on their use in a prison context, which should describe examples of legitimate and illegitimate use. They also recommended more guidance to clarify ambiguous terms such as ‘arms’ and ‘passive physical resistance’. Handbook on Dynamic Security, pp. 38-39. 416  CPT 11th General Report, CPT/Inf (2001) 16, para. 47. 417  Article 3 of the Code states that ‘Law enforcement officials may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty’. The Commentary elaborates on the exceptionality and proportionality, stating that ‘[i]n no case should this provision be interpreted to authorize the use of force which is disproportionate to the legitimate objective to be achieved’. 418  In accordance with the commentary to article 1 of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, the term ‘law enforcement officials’ includes all officers of the law, whether appointed or elected, who exercise police powers, especially the powers of arrest or detention. 419  The term ‘law enforcement officials’ includes ‘all officers of the law, whether appointed or elected, who exercise police powers, especially the powers of arrest or detention’ (See note 1 of the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which refers to the same definition in the commentary to article 1 of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials). 420  European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), 2nd General Report on the CPT’s activities covering the period 1 January to 31 December 1991, 1992, CPT/Inf (92) 3, para. 53 (CPT 2nd General Report). 421  Penal Reform International and the Essex Human Rights Centre | 107