Mr Eric Baskind
I am a consultant in violence reduction and the safer use of force, and senior lecturer in law at Liverpool John Moores University. I am also Chair of the Centre for Physical Interventions, British Self Defence Governing Body.
My particular research focus is concerned with the evaluation of the many different systems of managing disruptive, aggressive and violent behaviour which include de-escalation, communication, behavioural management, disengagement and restraint.
I am experienced across a broad range of systems used by the Prison and Police services, healthcare including secure hospital establishments, and other institutional settings providing secure accommodation, schools and other kinds of educational establishments including the juvenile secure estate, as well as those methods used by security personnel within the fields of personal safety and public order.
Much of my work is involved in devising and advising on effective and safer methods of dealing with disruptive, aggressive and violent behaviour and the related question of assessing risk to identify and inform subsequent strategies for the reduction of and coping with such behaviours and in the reduction in the use of physical interventions and restraints generally.
I have published articles in peer-reviewed professional journals and chapters in professional textbooks. I also speak several times a year at conferences, many of which I chair. My papers focus on a range of related topics including violence-reduction strategies, the use and misuse of physical restraint and the current thinking on the use of non-pain inducing techniques, prone-restraint positions and mechanical restraint devices.
I serve on a number of steering and expert groups including the Security Industry Authority, College of Policing, the four UK High Secure Hospitals and ProtectED.
I have advised numerous other bodies including the BBC, the Howard League for Penal Reform, various Inquiries and the Parliamentary Resources Unit. I have appeared in a number of high-profile Inquires including the Lord Carlile Independent Inquiry into the Use of Physical Restraint in Prisons, Secure Training Centres, and Local Authority Secure Children’s Homes and served as a Commissioner to the National Independent Commission on Enforced Removals with specific responsibility for the management of violence and aggression and the use of restraint. The Commission was chaired by The Lord Ramsbotham, GCB, CBE, formerly Chief Inspector of Her Majesty’s Prisons, and was established in March 2012 following the death under restraint of Mr Jimmy Mubenga during his deportation from the UK in 2010.
I have been instructed as an expert witness both in the UK and in other countries in more than 3,000 cases including by the Ministry of Justice/Home Office, Prison Officers’ Association, Police Federation and Scottish Prison Service in a range of cases where issues of physical intervention/restraint have arisen both in training and operationally. I have considerable experience of dealing with cases involving deaths in custody and giving evidence at Inquests and Fatal Accident Inquiries.