Welcome to my blog

I thought this would be a great way to tell everyone about the many interesting things that I do in my professional life as a researcher, writer and educator. At the moment, my interest is mainly focused on policing and more specifically on police custody i.e. where people are taken on arrest whilst a decision is reached about charge. Watch this space for updates on my whirlwind academic life.

About Me

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Layla Skinns is a Senior Lecturer in criminology in the Centre for Criminological Research at the School of Law, University of Sheffield. Before joining the Centre for Criminological Research, Layla worked at the University of Cambridge, where she was the Adrian Socio-Legal Research Fellow at Darwin College and a Teaching Associate on the MSt. in Applied Criminology for senior police, prison and probation staff. Whilst working as a Research Fellow at Darwin College, she co-organised the prestigious Darwin College Lecture Series on the theme of risk. Her qualifications are: MA (Hons) Sociology and Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 2000; MPhil Criminological Research, University of Cambridge, 2001 and PhD Criminology, University of Cambridge, 2005

Thursday 26 January 2012

Reasons to celebrate

I was delighted to see in the news yesterday that following a debate in the House of Lords, the plans in the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill to introduce means-testing to determine suspects' eligibility for custodial legal advice have been dropped. This really is something to celebrate. Aside from the practical concerns about the police and suspects being hard-pressed to confirm a suspects financial status, within the confines of a police investigation, publicly-funded custodial legal advice is an absolute must in a jurisdiction such as England and Wales where suspects have only a qualified not an absolute right to silence. This means that negative inferences can be drawn from a suspects silence and that only a legal advisor can properly advise a suspect about whether remaining silent is in their best interests, bearing in mind that they are only suspects and may well be innocent.



It is only by looking at what happens elsewhere can we really appreciate the importance of the right to publicly-funded legal advice for all suspects in the police station in England and Wales. In my recent British-Academy funded comparative study of police custody in England and Wales, Ireland and a jurisdiction each in the U.S. and Australia, there were clear differences. In England and Ireland there was a qualified right to silence, meaning that adverse inferences could be drawn, for example, if they failed to reveal something in interview that they later relied on in court. By contrast, in the Australian and American jurisdictions there was an absolute right to silence. In theory, exercising this right to silence in the American jurisdiction means that the police have to terminate the interview and cannot ask the suspect to be interviewed again.


It was only in England and Wales that suspects had access both in theory and practice to publicly-funded legal advice in the police station. This right existed, in theory, for some suspects and some of the time in Ireland and the Australian jurisdiction, though some of the staff I spoke to were unclear about who was entitled to receive it and there appeared to be limited up-take of it. In the American jurisdiction whilst suspects were informed of their right to legal advice including from a public defender, in practice, this right was only available on arraignment. Overall, this meant that there were few lawyers at the police station in Ireland or in the jurisdictions in Australia and America, whilst lawyers are much more visible in police stations in England, if not in person over the telephone.


The variations between the four jurisdictions in terms of the right to silence is fundamental to understanding why the right to publicly-funded legal advice for all in the police station is so important in England. Without it, there is a greater risk that someone might be convicted partly because they remained silent. Kenneth Clarke may well be right that England has a generous legal aid system, but this is not only justified, but also necessary in view of the qualified right to silence.



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