ABSTRACT
Deaths in police custody are, thankfully, relatively few in number and compared to the total number of people who pass through custody suites remain rare events. However, each death in custody has the potential to impact on public trust and confidence in the police, particularly among ethnic minority communities (Macpherson, 1999; Bowling and Phillips, 2002). Individual cases can attract a large amount of media attention and sometimes high-profile campaigns against what may have been seen as potential police misconduct or ill treatment (Bucke and Wadham, 2009). Despite this being such a controversial and highprofile area of policing there has been no recent attempt to examine cases where someone has died in police custody, looking at the circumstances and nature of these deaths. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has disseminated some of the lessons that have been identified in some investigations into deaths in custody through its Learning the Lessons Bulletins, but it is only by examining all cases over a substantial period of time that it is possible to identify more general lessons to inform policy and practice. Research was therefore conducted to address this gap in knowledge and to help prevent future deaths in custody. The chapter presents some of the key findings and conclusions from this study. It focuses on the prevalence of deaths in custody and how this has changed over an 11-year period. In particular it examines the characteristics of those who died and the cause of their deaths, the vulnerability of the deceased, the use of restraint, risk assessment and medical provision, and investigations and their outcomes. These issues are considered within the context of professional standards, for example police officers’ and staff members’ professionalism in performing their duties in custody, the use of force during the detention and whether it was appropriate and proportionate, and the use of misconduct and criminal charges in these cases.
