An exploration of the legitimacy of PAVA irritant spray in prisons in England and Wales

The problem of order in prisons is related to their coercive nature and the inevitable associated legitimacy deficit. Accordingly, prison staff have the authority to use force when necessary to prevent injury and control violence and disorder. In 2018, Pelargonic Acid Vanillylamide (PAVA) irritant (pepper) spray was introduced to reduce the risk of life-changing or life-threatening injury to staff and prisoners. Until now extraordinarily little data on the use of force in prisons has been available to the public, which has impeded judgements about the legitimacy of PAVA.
In this mixed methods research, bivariate correlation was used to explore two secondary quantitative datasets. The first related to the use of PAVA in prisons from 2018 - 2024 and was obtained from the Ministry of Justice via a Freedom of Information Act request. The second was HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ prisoner survey which was used to estimate the rate of restraint over time, identify the characteristics of the prisoners who experienced restraint and examine prisoner perceptions of legitimacy. In addition, stakeholder perceptions of the legitimacy of PAVA, gathered by conducting semi-structured interviews with 25 people who had a professional or personal interest in prisons, were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
On average, PAVA use was not excessive (M = 2.70, SD = 5.74) but it was very high in some prisons - up to 13 times the mean. Prisoners with additional vulnerabilities, such as youth and disability, were more frequently restrained than those without; the rate of restraint had risen over the previous 20 years; prisoner perceptions of the legitimacy of their treatment and conditions were weak, and prisoners who had been restrained had more negative perceptions than those who had not (causality was not established). Many stakeholders considered PAVA was legitimate because levels of violence in prisons posed a risk to life; PAVA gave staff confidence, even though its capacity to reduce injury was unproven. However, others feared that PAVA would be used inappropriately by staff, and both groups had limited confidence in the processes for scrutinising the use of force in prisons. The availability and use of PAVA in prisons in England and Wales was justified by the relative illegitimacy of the prevailing treatment and conditions in prisons.