Editorial
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-04-2020-060 |
| Date | 01 April 2020 |
| Pages | 53-57 |
| Published date | 01 April 2020 |
| Author | Bridget Penhale,Margaret Flynn |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Adult protection,Safeguarding,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Abuse |
Editorial
Bridget Penhale and Margaret Flynn
Welcome to this second issue of the current volume. To start with, we provide some
information and recent stories that relate to the broad topic that is safeguarding,
which have appearedin different types of media in recent months.
What a bleak global backdrop to the New Year! If only we could outsource the task of
supranationalcooperation [...].
During last year we learned about the use of “isolation booths” to accommodate disruptive
schoolchildren[1]. Then during January 2020, we gathered that there is no limit to the
imagination of schools and architects, as “removal rooms” and “confined booths” have now
become the go-to solutionfor behaviour management in England[2]. We may be persuaded
that they are “safe spaces run by adults” but their resemblance to the unlimited seclusion in
Assessment and Treatmentunits and “hospitals” is unnerving and bears close scrutiny [...].
We recommend that you download the report: “Without my family: The impact of family
separation on child refugees in the UK[3].” It reveals that the UK Government’s policy on
refugee familyreunion:
䊏prevents child refugees who have sought safety in the UK from being joined by their
parents, brothers, or sisters;
䊏leaves the UK as the only EU country that refuses to grant child refugees the right to be
reunited with even their closest family; and
䊏is directly at odds with national and international law, contravening the principle of the
best interests of the child (p3).
As a Sudanese teenager said, “Being without your family, it is like you have a body
without a soul”. Following the UK’s departure from membership of the European Union at
the end of January, we have subsequently learned of government plans to also remove
the UK from the European Court of Human Rights –which if/when effected would likely
further diminish citizenship rights, perhaps in particular, those from marginal groups,
such as refugees.
The care worker accused of killing 19 residentswith learning disabilities in south west Tokyo
during 2016 has pleaded not guilty[4].His night-time rampage also left 24 residents seriously
injured. Was his “deep-seatedhatred of people with disabilities” the reason or his “absent or
weakened capacity”? The absence of any remorse and evident conviction that his actions
were prompted “for the sake of society” would suggest the former. Although there is stigma
and shame associatedwith disability in Japan, one mother whose autisticdaughter was killed
in this dreadful eventchose to speak out:
She loved music, she lived as energetically as she could [...] Her name was Miho. I want that
public as proof that she existed,” she said. “I want people to know who she was.
It has taken coroner Nadim Bashir to clearly set out the shocking reality of a botched,
ideological policy. WhenDavid Braddon murdered Connor Marshall in an unprovoked attack
during 2015, Braddon’s inexperienced probation officer was struggling to manage an
overwhelmingly large caseload with inadequate management support[5]. The coroner was
critical of the Wales Probation Trust,Wales CRC Ltd and, specifically, the probation officer’s
Bridget Penhale is based at
the Department of Health
Sciences, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, UK.
Margaret Flynn is based at
Journal of Adult Protection,
Hove, UK.
DOI 10.1108/JAP-04-2020-060 VOL. 22 NO. 2 2020, pp. 53-57, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1466-8203 jTHE JOURNAL OF ADULT PROTECTION jPAGE 53
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