Restrictive Practices: A Pathway to Elimination

On the 25th July 2023, the Disability Royal Commission released Restrictive Practices: A Pathway to Elimination, a research report, co-authored by Associate Professor Linda Steele of UTS, that explores restrictive practices and how to eliminate them. The report strongly believes that restrictive practices are discriminatory and violent, and urges the Disability Royal Commission to adopt the recommendations in its final report.

The report asks questions surrounding the cause of using restrictive practices against people with disability and how we can eliminate their use, while acknowledging the lived experience of people with disabilities who face violence as a result of these practices and highlighting their long-term impact. In the words of Nicole Lee, President of People with Disability Australia, "for too long, people with disability have experienced violent practices such as seclusion and restraint that is not only a traumatic violation of our human rights, but is also state-sanctioned within current state and territory laws".

In its findings, the report concludes that restrictive practices are not in line with international human rights law and obligations, strip the dignity of people with disability, and are influenced by a system of violence, coercion, and control. Ultimately, the report makes eight recommendations to the governments of Australia including to prohibit restrictive practices, provide redress for victim-survivors, change social attitudes towards people with disability, deinstitutionalise and desegregate the living environments of people with disability, and more.

To read the full report (including in easy read format), please follow the link: Restrictive Practices: A Pathway to Elimination

View also: the media release from People with Disability Australia in support of the report, from which the above quote was drawn and article inspiration is attributed.

Banner image attributed to Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.