Article 39 condemns the government’s decision, confirmed today [11.08.2026], to extend the use of PAVA incapacitant spray in Feltham, Werrington and Wetherby Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) for another year.
PAVA spray is a weapon specifically designed to cause pain. We have consistently opposed its introduction into child prisons, warning that arming staff would escalate and normalise violence, undermine relationships between children and staff, and expose already vulnerable children to further harm.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse concluded that the use of pain compliance techniques on children is a form of child abuse, is likely to contribute to a culture of violence, and may increase the risk of child sexual abuse. It urged the government to prohibit their use.
It is extraordinary, then, that the government has chosen to extend the use of PAVA just weeks after publishing its response to Isabelle Trowler’s review of safeguarding in youth custody, in which Ministers declared that strengthening safeguarding for children in custody must remain an “urgent and uncompromising priority”. The decision also comes just weeks after the Independent Restraint Review Panel published information on instances of PAVA use in 2025, revealing that it did not consider that alternatives to PAVA were fully considered in a number of cases, and only around half of the deployments were judged to meet policy guidance.
How can the government claim to be putting the safeguarding of children at the heart of reform while extending the use of a weapon against them?
The continued authorisation of PAVA spray is yet more proof of the fundamental failure of child prisons. It is further evidence that these institutions cannot provide the safe, caring and therapeutic environments children need. As we have documented alongside our partners in the End Child Imprisonment campaign, decades of attempts to reform child prisons have failed.
The government itself has now committed in its Youth Justice White Paper, to moving away from YOIs and towards smaller, therapeutic settings. The commitment is welcome, but it must not remain a vague, long-term ambition. The forthcoming Youth Custody Transformation Plan, due this autumn, must turn that commitment into urgent action. It must set out a concrete and expedited route to closing YOIs and the last remaining Secure Training Centre, and replacing them with genuinely child-centred, welfare-based provision, which respects children’s rights and nurtures their dignity, as required by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Children cannot be safeguarded through the infliction of further pain and violence. PAVA spray has no place in the care of children. The government must end its use.
