The 'good' police custody study (GPCS)

'The GPCS: early findings', National Custody Seminar, Police Federation of England and Wales, Sergeants' Central Committee, Stoke-on-Trent, 23-24 September 2014.

Tomorrow myself and Andrew Wooff (the Research Associate on the 'good' police custody study) will be presenting some early findings from our research. Please treat them with caution, as they remain preliminary at this stage of the research; we still have a long way to go before we finish collecting and analysing the data from the study. We, nonetheless, welcome constructive feedback and comments: @drlaylaskinns or @policecustody. Without giving too much away we shall be focusing on describing the different types of custody suites we have identified, as well as the conditions of detention and the use of discretion in these different settings.

See you tomorrow.

Layla

Making an impact?

In the world of social science research, there is ever increasing pressure on academics to be able to show that their research makes an impact, with impact being built into grant applications, at least for some funders like the Economic and Social Research Council through 'Pathways to Impact' statements. Indeed, in my latest study on 'good' police custody, impact is an integral part of it, in that one of the aims of the research is produce a set of benchmarks setting out what the research shows about 'good' police custody practices and, in addition, create a survey tool for police forces to monitor their performance against these benchmarks on an on-going basis.

The focus on impact is laudable. Indeed, one of the reasons why I became an academic was in the hope that in some small way my research would be able to make a difference to someone's life and to society, more generally. I still hang on to that - perhaps idealistic - dream. At the same time, there is definitely a debate to be had about the potentially stifling effects of the growing attention paid to impact in the social sciences. My concern is that the focus on impact may obscure the quest for understanding, knowledge and for learning, which are all laudable aims in themselves and which were also part of the reason why I became an academic. 

My other concern is that the focus on impact might also consign theory and the more scholarly aspects of social science research to the cutting-room floor, at least until busy academics can find the time to pick up these pieces again and mould them into publications for consumption by our peers. Yet, theory should be at the heart of any academic discipline as it can be used to test, refute and confirm hypotheses, but can also lead to a development of theory. Though, the exact role played by theory in research is contentious, its centrality to research is not.

 Anyway, I digress, what I wanted to write is that in a few small ways I think my research is slowly percolating its way through the ether and is beginning to make an impact. First of all, I was delighted to hear the news that the provision of appropriate adults was to be extended to 17 years olds through a revision in the PACE Codes of Practice in October 2013. An anomaly in the law meant that, hitherto, 17 year olds were classified as adults in the police station, unlike in other parts of the criminal justice system. The report that I researched and wrote research for the Howard League on the overnight detention of children is one of the few studies to have flagged up this important issue and I would hope, therefore, that it was used to contribute to the public debate and subsequent change in government policy.  

Second, today, I rather excitedly discovered that my research about access to legal advice in police stations (Skinns, 2011) was included in discussions about the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill 2013:Equality Impact Assessment. In particular, it has been used in discussions about when a person's right of access to a solicitor arises, how this is communicated to the person and the circumstances in which this right can be waived, taking into account the likely vulnerabilities of detainees. Let’s hope that these provisions are adopted in law in the near future.

 I hope that my new research on ‘good’ police custody will also make a similar, if not greater contribution to the world of policing and beyond, though it will probably be a few years before I am in a position to judge this. Watch this space.

£500 bursary for CCR Visiting Fellows

Dear Readers

In conjunction with colleagues, I have been in the process of re-developing the Visiting Fellow scheme for the Centre for Criminological Research (CCR), School of Law, University of Sheffield. The aim of the scheme is to foster knowledge exchange and research collaborations between CCR members and scholars from other Universities in the UK or abroad. Please see here for further details about the scheme and expectations of visitors.

 
Further to this, we are delighted to announce that from 2013/14 we will be offering an annual bursary of up to £500 for members of staff of any level of seniority who wish to spend time visiting myself or any other colleague in CCR.

 
CCR is one of the oldest criminology centres in the UK, with a world-leading reputation and including staff with a wide range of criminological interests. I have found it to be a wonderful place to work for the four years that I have been there thus far. Any visitor would be welcomed into its vibrant research community and its collegial atmosphere.

 
Please get in touch if you are interested to find out more on L.Skinns@sheffield.ac.uk

 
Layla

Police custody: plus ça change?

In a recent review of my 2011 book on police custody, the eminent policing scholar, Robert Reiner, noted how fascinating it was to learn about how much (or rather how little) had changed since his own study of police custody practices in the early years of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. This is in spite of the “seemingly massive changes in the policing world, not to speak of wider society, in the intervening decades”, he says. In this review, he later notes that “[t]he overall feeling conveyed by [the book] is that for all the superficial changes at the routine operational level, plus ça change is the main theme. For all the ceaseless fashion parade of new discourses and initiatives, the everyday practice of policing is structured by macro political-economic and cultural processes that have changed in ways that intensify the patterns observed by the classic police ethnographies of the 1960s and 1970s.”

His insightful comments about the overall direction of the book through the notion of plus ça change (i.e. the idea that everything changes, yet it all stays the same), was the focus of a talk that I gave on Friday 1 November 2014 as part of the Innocence Network UK annual conference. What I argued was that aspects of policing (of relevance to police custody) have fundamentally altered for the better through the improved regulation of police custody, particularly through the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the associated Codes of Practice, but also through ECHR/ECtHR and the UK’s signature of the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (known as OPCAT), which as has led to a programme of inspections of police custody facilities by HMIP and HMIC. Improvements have also been made to the custody environment and to the kind of people who work there, which all have the potential to provide a more humane experience for suspect in the police station, through civilianization and privatization, as well as through technology such as CCTV.

However, various aspects of policing have remained unchanged including the existence of considerable amounts of police discretion which, in combination with the inherent permissibility of the law (McBarnet, 1979), enables the occupational cultures of the police to exert significant influence over police decision-making and actions. What has also remained unchanged is the role that the police occupy in society. In relatively consensual and peaceful democratic societies, this role concerns the exercise of authority backed up by the capacity (i.e. the possibility) of using force. That is, the police have at their disposal discretion about the deployment of legitimate force to control 'something-that-ought-not-to-be-happening-and-about-which-someone-had-better-do-something-now!' (Bittner, 1974).

These ‘new’ and the ‘old’ aspects of policing co-exist alongside and conflict with each other. Moreover, the clash between the new and the old has been intensified as a result of social, political and economic changes in the post-war period, which have left the police in a precarious position, as evidenced by declining trust in the police and as the police have struggled to adapt to the changing world around them.

Together this is what is meant by plus ça change and it is all manifest in police custody, a micro-cosm of policing. This was the main focus of my talk, evidenced with reference to the data that I collected in my ESRC-funded police custody study in 2006/7. In sum, custody environments are much improved, but they are still concerned with asserting power and control, as well as with the deprivation of liberty, meaning that suspects are still at risk from what I have called the ‘pains of police detention’ and are likely to experience police custody as like a ‘miniature prison’. Suspects generally have better access to rights and entitlements (such as to legal advice), but the conditions of police detention and the pressure put on them by the police and others can still lead them to waive these rights so as to ‘get it over with’ as quickly as possible. Suspects form positive relationships particularly with civilian police staff, but these can be undermined by the largely coercive relationships that they continue to have with police officers, backed up by their capacity to use force.

Job Opportunities on my 'good' police custody study

Very briefly, here is some information about the research positions that will be available on my new police custody study from February 2014.

 

I am looking to appoint two researchers on this ESRC-funded study, the aim of which is to conceptualize and theorize ‘good’ police custody practices. In brief, successful applicants will work as part of team collecting quantitative and qualitative data in police stations across England and Wales, analysing and writing up the data in a timely fashion, as well having opportunities to attend conferences overseas. For further details please click on the links below:

Research Associate (Grade 7)

Research Assistant (Grade 6)

 

The closing date for applications for both posts is 10 October 2013.

I am back!

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last year, but I have been rather occupied with all things baby. My well-intentioned plans to continue updating the blog whilst on maternity leave fell by the way side. Babies keep you very busy! However, I am now back at work - teaching, writing and researching - and it feels good.

Whilst on maternity leave I did manage a small amount of writing, well, finishing off of publications, which was great for keeping the brain ticking over. These are below, though only the first is published at the moment. This article on the role of the law in policing appears in a collection of articles by key policing scholars about theories of policing. This collection is a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in policing, given that theories of policing tend to be a neglected but essential topic in police studies. Happy reading.

Skinns, L. (2012) ‘The role of the law in policing’, Journal of Police Studies, 2012/4, no. 25.

 Skinns, L. (forthcoming in 2013) ‘The police in England: an institution in crisis?’, in M. Smith et al. (eds.) UK Institutions, crisis and response. Palgrave Macmillan.

Du Rose, N. and Skinns, L. (forthcoming in 2013) Challenging the punitive turn in criminal justice through restorative approaches in schools? In E. Sellman, H. Cremin and G. McCluskey (eds.) When Restorative Justice and Education meet. London: Routledge.

New research for 2013

I am very pleased and delighted to announce that I am the recipient of a major research grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, one of the key funders of social science research in the UK.

The title of the research is 'Good' police custody: theorizing the 'is' and the 'ought'. It will commence in September 2013, taking in multiple sites in the UK over a three-year period.

Police custody is where an arrested person is taken whilst a decision is reached about what should be done with the case, for example whether to charge or bail them. It is therefore an important gateway to the criminal justice process, where much is at stake for suspects and staff. In recent years, there have been changes to the way that police custody areas are staffed and managed, in particular, civilianization of roles formerly done by police officers has given way to privatization through the use of public-finance initiatives (i.e. when a private security company owns and/or manages a police custody suite and the police let it from them).

Though there have been a few recent studies of police custody, including my own book, ‘Police Custody’ (Willan, 2011), there have been few attempts to rigorously examine ‘good’ police custody or to map out changes to police custody arrangements on a national basis. Information about how police custody is currently delivered can be used to theorize about 'good' police custody practices and 'good' policing, and explore how police custody should be delivered in the future.

Aims of the research

1. Describe and appraise variations in police custody arrangements across the UK.

2. Identify the key dimensions of police custody areas in operation. They might include occupational culture(s), power, fairness, justice, emotions and relationships, cost, governance and accountability.

3. Explore how police custody arrangements such as civilianisation and privatisation impact on these key dimensions of police custody.

4. Conceptualise and theorise the dimensions of 'good' police custody and the links between them, and examine the implications for 'good' policing.

5. Develop benchmarks and a survey tool to monitor and improve police custody facilities, complementing the inspections conducted by HMIP/HMIC.

Impact

Though the study will be of great interest to academics and researchers, it will also be of interest to key stakeholders such as the 52 police organisations in the UK, HMIC, HMIP, the IPCC, as well as private security companies contracted to manage/staff police custody areas. These key stakeholders will be provided with a better understanding of:

- How police custody operates in practice and also how it should operate. Much research in the past has focused on police malpractice, whereas the proposed research will examine what constitutes 'good' police custody practices. Such information could be used to enhance public confidence in the police and to increase the likelihood that the public continue to cooperate and engaged with the police in the future.

- Police custody in a local and national perspective. This will enable police organisations to compare themselves with other similar police organisations and help them to understand where they might improve or where they are already good enough.

- How to monitor and improve police custody practices on an ongoing and long-term basis. The research will lead to benchmarks and a survey tool which police organisations can use to measure their performance and which will be complementary to HMIC/HMIP inspections.

- How to balance the need for cost-effective public service delivery with the need for security, fairness, justice, legitimacy and accountability, under austere financial conditions.

Is it the end of the (policing) world as we know it?

I have been following with avid interest the hotting-up of the debate about the contracting-out of police functions, in the context of the Coalition Government’s wider plans to contract-out other parts of the public sector to the private sector, including the NHS and parts of local government. Hence, I was not entirely surprised to read the headlines in The Guardian over the weekend about the plans for the privatisation of policing. According to this report, the intention is to extend the contracting-out of police services beyond police custody (something which was civilianised in the 1990s, but began to be contracted-out to the private sector in the 2000s) to other police functions including patrol and investigation. In particular, it is looking likely that West Midlands Police and Surrey Police will lead the way in issuing multi-billion pound contracts to the private sector for providing some of these services, thanks to them having Chief Constables who are favourable to such developments.

This signals a new phase in the workforce modernization agenda in policing, though at the same time takes us ‘back to the future’, having parallels with the patterns of policing that existed prior to the birth of the ‘new police’ in 1829 when policing became more firmly located within the state. Whilst it signals a new phase in policing, it also appears to be a continuation of the project of privatization that began under the Conservative Government in the 1980s and 1990s when the private sector were delegated to run parts of the prison estate and when various nationalised industries including British Rail, British Coal, British Telecom and so on were privatized. Growing up in the 1980s in Doncaster  – a former pit town - I remember the disruption, devastation and deprivation that this caused all too well.

So what to make of these latest developments? Is it the end of the (policing) world as we know it? Or at least as I have known it in my lifetime? I think a few issues are worth flagging. We are entering into untested waters. Whilst contracting-out has slowly been emerging in police custody, there have been few studies to have systematically examined its consequences for police officers or citizens. Mine being one of them. Consequently, some key questions remain unanswered, particularly if contracting out is to be extended to other parts of the police organisation: Will it cost less? Will it lead to improved service delivery and who will benefit from these changes? Is it something that the public want? What about the consequences for police officers and the policed, for that matter? We simply do not know the answers to these questions. I have a research grant application pending for a study which will delve into the complex answers to some of these questions, in relation to police custody. (Fingers and toes crossed that my bid is successful). Surely, it is better to have addressed these questions in relation to all the relevant areas of policing where contracting-out is to be trialled, before contracting-out is rolled-out to West Midlands and Surrey Police and beyond?

There is also a more fundamental issue at stake in relation to the proposals to contract-out a wide variety of police functions to the private sector, which have traditionally been performed by police officers. What should policing look like in contemporary societies, where cuts to police budgets by up to 20 per cent is a reality? Should parts of the police role be handed over to the private sector? If so, which police functions? And where should the thin blue dividing line be drawn? The power of arrest seems to have emerged as one task that the police believe should remain with the police.  

Answering these questions requires an appreciation of the link between the police and society. Policing scholar, Robert Reiner, describes the police as like ‘litmus paper’ reflecting the unfolding exigencies of society. The social conditions of policing shape the kind of policing we have and we believe to be right, whilst the police in turn contribute to patterns of social ordering, as well as to societal norms and values. For instance, if the police – a key institution of the State, at least since 1829 – is to be privatised, what does that tell us about what we as value as a society? That saving money and cost effectiveness, the free-market, and private sector profit should be valued over a strong role for the state in bringing about justice and contributing to the security of society?

This alerts us to the fact that in fundamentally altering the way that policing is delivered through contracting-out, more is at stake than simply whether or not private security companies patrol neighbourhoods or lock someone up and take their fingerprints at the police station. What is at stake is how we see ourselves as a society and what we value as important. Widespread contracting-out of a variety of police functions spells not only the end of the policing world as we currently know it, but also, and more fundamentally, an end to a society which values the State in delivering justice and security.

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.

Any budding PhD students out there?

      Announcing

THREE WHITE ROSE/ESRC PhD STUDENTSHIPS FOR 2012

‘BEYOND THE RIOTS’ STUDENTSHIP NETWORK

The White Rose Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York have made available three ESRC funded PhD studentships related to social order and urban unrest. The ‘Beyond the Riots’ studentship network aims to develop PhD students through analysis of different forms of disorderly conduct through a range of cross disciplinary and combined methodological approaches. The network will promote and coordinate the interaction of students and supervisors with a shared interest in social (dis)order and urban governance and will encourage insights into the prevention of unrest and the promotion of peaceful social relations and inter-group tolerance. The Studentships are attached to the ESRC funded White Rose Doctoral Training Centre (DTC).

 

POLICING SOCIAL DISORDER AND URBAN UNREST

Supervisors: Professor Adam Crawford, School of Law, University of Leeds;

Dr Layla Skinns, School of Law, University of Sheffield

For application particulars, consult: Karin Houkes: k.m.houkes@leeds.ac.uk

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/rsa/postgraduate_scholarships/wrs

 

DISORDERLY ELITES: A PROFILE OF INVERTED SOCIAL DEVIANCE

Supervisors: Dr Rowland Atkinson, Department of Sociology, University of York;

Dr Alpa Parmar, School of Law, University of Leeds

For application particulars, consult:

http://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/postgraduate/pg-funding/white-rose-dtc/

 

housing tenure and urban unrest

Supervisors: Professor John Flint, Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield;

Professor Caroline Hunter, School of Law, University of York

For application particulars, consult:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/scholarships/whiterose

The White Rose University Consortium is a strategic partnership between Yorkshire’s leading research universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York.  Each university is offering a three-year Research Studentship for students commencing full-time PhD research study in Session 2012/13.  Each student project will be supervised by two members of academic staff, one each from two of the partner universities. Students will register at one university but will have access to the research facilities of the partner institution. The ‘Beyond the Riots’ network will be located within the existing (umbrella) White Rose DTC pathway of Security, Conflict and Justice and will also benefit from close working relations and collaborative meetings and events in conjunction with two existing White Rose studentship networks – ‘Responding to Global Challenges of Crime and Insecurity’ (2010-13) and ‘Global Anxieties and Urban Governance’ (2011-14). The studentships provide Home/EU tuition fees, an annual maintenance grant of £13,590 (in Session 2011/12) and a contribution towards research and travel expenses.  All of the ‘Beyond the Riots’ studentships are working toward a common application deadline of 5.00pm 3rd February 2012.  Applicants may apply to more than one studentship, but should indicate their preference.

January blues?

The run up to Christmas was so hectic, what with the Howard League report coming out and submitting three different research bids. One of these was written in collaboration with colleagues at the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York for three ESRC-funded White Rose PhD studentships. I was delighted to find out that we had been successful in our application. More on this in a moment. I am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed for success with the remaining two.

Christmas in the beautiful Lake District then came and went really quickly this year and here I am gearing up for Semester 2. This is my really busy teaching semester. I will be teaching lectures and seminars on three different modules, including my new MA Module, Policing and Society, which is an exciting new development for me and I hope for the students too! Teaching preparation is filling most of my time at the moment, but I am also close to finishing off a book proposal for a new book on policing and trying to make time for a few journal articles too.

I saw off the January blues by having a mass clear out and tidy of my office. It is now pristine and super organised in preparation for the busy period ahead of me. January not spring seems to me like the best time of year for this. Maybe that's just me.

Overnight detention of children in police cells - Interviews with BBC Radio Sheffield

Hear me being interviewed on BBC Radio Sheffield on 13 December 2011. First, by Toby Foster on the breakfast show, along with Andrew Nielsen from the Howard League:

Radio Interview 1 by Layla Skinns

And later by Rony Robinson:

Radio Interview 2 by Layla Skinns

Overnight detention of children in police cells - report out today

I am extremely delighted to say that the report I have researched and written for the Howard League has been published today. It uses a range of different data sources to draw attention to an extremely important issue, namely, the overnight detention of children. In around half the police services in England and Wales there were 53,000 overnight detentions in 2008 and 2009 of children aged between 10 and 16 years. The reasons for this are complex, but a key reason seems to be a break-down in the referral process between the police and local authority when children are charged and their bail is refused. The report also highlights improvements that could be made for children at risk overnight detention, such as greater use of police bail or the use of emergency foster care.

A link to the summary report can be found on the front page of the Howard League's website. The news release issued by the Howard League can be found here:

News Release

Howard League calls to ban overnight police custody for children under 14

With tens of thousands of children aged under 16 being detained overnight in police cells the majority of whom are innocent of any crime, the Howard League for Penal Reform has called for a ban on overnight police detention of under 14s, calling it a ‘dangerous and frightening practice that does more harm than good’. The charity hopes to spare least 11,500 children between the age of 10 to 13 the trauma of being detained overnight in a police cell every year.

According to figures released today in a report published by the Howard League on the overnight detention of children in police cells, at least 53,000 children aged under 16 were detained overnight in just over half the country’s police cells in 2008 and 2009. The report also recommends raising the age of criminal responsibility in line with European standards of 14 years. This would stem the flow of children into police custody.

Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform said, "I was horrified to discover how prevalent the practice of holding young children in police cells for one or even several nights across the country.   The figures from the report are still an underestimation as only half of police forces responded to our FOI request.  

“What children need is somewhere safe, not somewhere secure. From conversations we have had with the police it seems that some children are being held in police cells for child protection reasons, for example when a child is found out alone at night. The Howard League is warning that this will increase as local authorities face cuts to children's services. If parents can’t be relied upon to provide a safe place for these children, it is up to the local authority.  A police cell is not an appropriate place for children, and this commonplace, dangerous and frightening practice does more harm than good.”

Dr Layla Skinns from the University of Sheffield, who researched and wrote the report for the Howard League, is concerned about the complexity of the legislation affecting the overnight detention of children and more importantly by its effects on children. She said:  

“There appears to be a break-down in the referral process between police custody and local authority accommodation. Local authority accommodation does not appear to be being provided because there isn’t the availability or because requests for it are not being made in the first place. Spending the night in a police cell is likely to be a frightening and intimidating experience for children who will be placed in the same environment as adults. This needs to change. Other options need to be explored, such as greater use of police bail or emergency foster care. And there needs to be less complexity in the legislation and greater accountability when the referral process breaks down.”

In the report she has also drawn attention to the legal anomaly which means that 17 year olds are treated as adults in police custody despite being regarded as children in other parts of the criminal justice system. This means that they enter the system as adults, but if they end up in court will be tried as children.

The report also reveals that police training on the treatment and overnight detention of children is limited so that police are uncertain about their powers and responsibilities, sometimes detaining a child overnight when other options could provide the place of safety that they need. The charity contends that laws designed to safeguard children should be applied appropriately by the police or children will be put at risk.

The Howard League believes many children are being arrested and detained unnecessarily.  At least a quarter of a million children were arrested last year – including 22,135 aged 10 to 13 – but only 81,500 were sentenced by a court and only 4,200 were sentenced to custody.

Frances Crook added, "This suggests that for two thirds of children who are put through the trauma and indignity of an arrest and detention in a police station, it was unnecessary."

Of the 53,000 children detained overnight in 2008 and 2009:

·       10,845 were girls (21%).

·       10,050 were black and minority ethnic children (20%)

·       Four were under the age of 10, which is the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales

Further information

Sophie Willett

020 7241 7866        0755 334 5522

Sophie.willett@howardleague.org

Please find a copy of the summary of the report Overnight detention of children in police cells (LINKS TO WEBSITE)

ISDN line number 020 7923 4196

Dr Layla Skinns is a Lecturer in Criminology at the Centre for Criminological Research, School of Law, University of Sheffield. She has conducted a wide array of research on subjects such as crime prevention, multi-agency criminal justice partnerships, drug users and the criminal justice system, restorative justice and policing. She has recently published, ‘Police custody: Governance, legitimacy and reform in the criminal justice process’ (Routledge, 2011).

More conferences and talks

Last week I went to two really interesting but quite different events:

1.      A one-day event on "Policing at a time of contraction and constraint: Re-imagining the role and function of contemporary policing", which was sponsored by the British Academy and convened by Professor Andrew Millie (Edghill University) and Dr Karen Bullock (Surrey University). Speakers Robert Reiner, Ben Bowling, Nick Tilley, Mike Hough and Simon Holdaway. The focus of the event was on discussing what the role and function of the police should be, who should determine this and through what mechanisms should policing be delivered. Many thanks to Andrew and Karen for organising and inviting me to this stimulating event.

2.      A Custody Officers’ one-day seminar, run by the National Custody Officer Forum (NCF), which is affiliated to the Sergeant’s Central Committee of the Police Federation. This was the first event of its kind, which provided an interesting window into the issues that are currently significant to custody officers. For example, Michael Zander spoke about the recent Hookway case, which affected police bail decisions. Whilst the new chair of the NCF, Sgt Eddie Entwhistle, explored civilianization and privatization and its continuing impacts on custody officers.

Whilst it was less stressful to simply attend rather than present at these events, I’m also looking forward to presenting a few ideas of my own at the following conferences and events between now and Christmas:

·         Invited talk on ‘Plural policing and police custody’ at a conference on ‘Preventing deaths in police care’, which is organised by Capita, 19 October 2011. This will be attended by the police (largely Inspectors and Custody Officers) and other CJ practitioners. Unfortunately, I am unable to talk about the overnight detention of children, which is what I originally agreed to speak about.

·         Invited talk on ‘Doing research on police custody: some notes from the field’, Criminal Justice Centre, School of Law, Warwick University, 22-24 November 2011.

·         ‘Diversity, difference and vulnerability in police custody: key issues from comparative research in four common-law jurisdictions’, American Society of Criminology conference, 16-19 November, 2011, Washington, D.C.

·         Invited paper on ‘The role of the law in policing’, at a conference on ‘Tides and currents in police theories’ convened by the Flemish Centre for Police Studies and the Dutch Foundation for Society, Security and Police, 12-13 December 2011.

Why (democratic) police custody matters

Like many others I have been following the Troy Davis case carefully and wondering how and why the death penalty continues to be used in a number of states in America, whilst flying in the face of justice. As Troy Davis’ case and others like it show, the stakes are high during the police investigation, but also in police custody more generally. Around the world, police custody contributes to suspects' and victims' access to justice (e.g. it affects whether a case gets to court and whether an appropriate conviction and sentence is secured). Police custody also contributes to social justice. As Peter Manning points out in his new book, Democratic Policing, the links between crime and social inequality mean that “policing is an aspect of formal social ordering and … it operates as an agency for the redistribution of life chances in a population" (2010: xii). Drawing on Rawls’ theory of ‘justice as fairness’ and the ‘difference principle’ he argues that democratic policing should strive to minimize harm, meaning that “any action planned, stated or enacted, should not increase inequalities" (2010: 65).

It is difficult to see how police custody in a large number of states in America minimizes harm and decreases inequalities. Firstly, requirements that suspects in police custody be informed of their right to silence and to counsel - brought about by the Miranda ruling in 1966 - have been undermined and diminished by subsequent rulings by the Supreme Court and other lower courts up and down the country (Weisselberg, 2008: 1599). Secondly, police training – at least in California which was the focus of Weisselberg’s research - encourages the police to view all suspects irrespective of whether they are a child, mentally ill or intellectually impaired as capable of understanding their rights and making a reasoned choice about exercising these rights. For instance one police training manual stated that:

“Being mentally slow, uneducated, drunk, injured and/or criminally unsophisticated does not mean we cannot get a valid waiver out of a person …” (cited in Weisselberg, 2008: 1574).

Yet there is a body of social science research which shows that the Miranda warning and waiver regime is beyond the comprehension of most suspects due to their low educational base and particularly for suspects who are children, mentally ill or intellectually impaired (Weisselberg, 2008: 1576-7).

Though Weisselberg’s research focused on California, there is a great deal of consonance between his research findings and my own, albeit that my research in the U.S. took place in a large city in a different jurisdiction and was based on conversations with and observation of police officers and suspects rather than an analysis of police training manuals. Whilst I still need more time to fully analyse the data from my research in the U.S., it was clear that police officers worked on the assumption of more or less treating everyone the same, including when giving them their Miranda warnings and seeking waivers. For example, when a child was in police custody they were kept in a cell which was in a different part of the holding area to adults. However, there were no attempts to help children better understand their Miranda rights or to alleviate their fears. I was told that parental permission was mostly sought by the police to talk to the child but that nine times out of ten parents were happy for the interrogation to proceed without them attending the police station at all. Similarly, I noted this in one of my field notes:

Two young black boys were arrested for shop-lifting $50 worth of stuff. They were detained from 3.40pm to 11.30pm when they were released into their parents care. This was longer than the 10 hours. One of these boys was 10 years old and the other was 15 years old. The younger boy could hardly sign his name (USAPO2).

Overall, police practices seemed to only pay lip service to the vulnerabilities and welfare needs of children.

So what does this have to do with Troy Davis? Whilst reading and thinking about these issues I happened across an article in The Guardian on Troy Davis and unfairness in the U.S. criminal justice system, which mentioned the related case of Holly Wood. He was recently executed in Alabama, in spite of him having an IQ of 59, which is substantially lower than the IQ of most. In his case, his execution went ahead in part because his lawyer failed to raise the issue of his intellectual impairment early enough in court proceedings. What struck me about this case was that surely the earliest point to recognise such intellectual impairment is in police custody? Intellectual impairment can affect whether a suspect understands their due process rights, whether they waive them and it can increase their suggestibility during police interrogations. This means that in police custody and not just at court and beyond, the metaphorical playing field needs to be in some way levelled for all vulnerable suspects.

Here, lessons can be learned from other countries. For example, in England children in police custody should be provided with access to an appropriate adult (AA) who may be their parent, guardian or carer from the local authority accommodation where they live or a social worker or some other responsible adult aged over 18 years who is not employed by the police (Police and Criminal Evidence Act Code of Practice C, 2008: 1.7). There is also statutory requirement for local Youth Offending Teams to provide an AA service for child suspects, which is normally comprised of trained volunteers. The idea for AAs originated from the ‘Confait Case’ which highlighted that vulnerable suspects can be pressured into falsely confessing to murder (Dixon et al., 1990). This led to AAs being given the role of advising suspects, observing whether interviews are conducted fairly and properly and facilitating communication between the suspect and the police. Admittedly the research evidence is mixed about whether AAs meet the needs of children (see for example, Skinns, 2010a; Pierpoint, 2008; Jacobson, 2008: 31; Pierpoint, 2006; Pierpoint, 2004; Quinn and Jackson, 2003: 47-49; Gudjonsson, Medford and Pearse, 2003). Nonetheless the requirement for children to have an AA serves as a reminder that children and other vulnerable suspects need additional support whilst in police custody and that equality is not about treating everyone the same, rather about achieving the same impact.

So what might we conclude from this about democratic police custody? Democratic police custody matters because by levelling-off the experiences of suspects it can prevent miscarriages of justice (which is of vital importance in places where the death penalty exists), as well as preventing social injustice. That said, in some states in the U.S., police custody is not as democratic as it might and should be. It adheres to some of the principles of democratic policing such as that the police be constrained and legalistically guided in their dealing with citizens and fair in procedure” (Manning, 2010: 65-66). After all, the law permits police officers to treat all suspects as having the same capacity to understand and decide about their due process rights. However, the consequences of this are undemocratic, according to Manning’s (2010: 65) definition, in that police custody fails to minimize harms and to decrease inequality for vulnerable suspects.

NB. These musings are the beginnings of a paper I am giving on ‘Diversity, difference and vulnerability in police custody: key issues from comparative research in four common-law countries’ at the American Society of Criminology Conference, 16-19 November 2011, Washington D.C.

Forthcoming edited collection - Risk

Hello readers,

Apologies for my absence, but I've been on a rainy holiday to the beautiful Ardnamurchan and then the Edinburgh Festival, followed by a wonderful trip to Barcelona.

I've got another book coming out very soon on 31 August. This is an edited collection of essays based on the theme of risk and called rather imaginatively Risk (CUP, 2011).

These essays stem from the Darwin College Lecture Series 2010, which were organised by myself and my two esteemed colleagues, Dr Michael Scott and Dr Tony Cox. This was a project I was involved whilst I was the Adrian Socio-Legal Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge.

We all worked extremely hard to produce a fanastic lecture series. For the uninitiated, the Darwin College Lecture Series are public lectures throughout Lent term. Each year a different theme is chosen by the organisers and speakers from a range of disciplines who are renowned for their ability to communicate in an accessible way are invited to respond to this chosen theme.

Risk proved to be a theme that captured the moment, mired as we were in 2009/10 in the economic down-turn. We also had a great line-up of speakers. One of the lectures, given by Ben Goldacre, was one of the most popular in the 25 year history of the lecture series, rivalling only the lecture given by Desmond Tutu over a decade ago.

Anyway, I think the book makes for a great read. Here's a bit of blurb about it:

Recent events from the economic down-turn to climate change mean that there has never been a better time to be thinking about and trying to better understand the concept for risk. In this book, prominent and eminent speakers from fields as diverse as statistics to classics, neuroscience to criminology, politics to astronomy, as well as speakers embedded in the media and in government have put their ideas down on paper in a series of essays that broaden our understanding of the meaning of risk.

The essays in this book come from the 2010 Darwin College Lecture Series. In each year of this lecture series, distinguished scholars skilled at communicating in an accessible way are invited to respond to a specific theme. In 2010, the chosen theme was risk. After twenty-five years, this lecture series is one of the most popular public lecture series at the University of Cambridge. The risk lectures in 2010 were amongst the most popular yet and, in essay form, they make for a lively and engaging read for specialists and non-specialists alike.

Conference update

I promised an update about how my conferences went, so here it is! The British Society of Criminology Conference (BSC), Northumbria University, Newcastle was a really enjoyable event, not least because there were many interesting policing panels included in the conference programme, as well as the first meeting of the newly established BSC Policing Network. The conference began with Professor Robert Reiner being presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award with many deservedly kind words being said about him. One such comment was that he knows a good thing when he sees it, which filled me with trepidation about what he might say as one of the ‘critics’ of my book. I need not have worried …well, not too much! He and the two other ‘critics’ in my ‘author meets critics panel – Professor David Dixon and Dr Megan O’Neill - were thoughtful and considered, yet probing in their comments.

In sum, the book was described as making “a significant contribution to the field”, particularly in terms of its insightfulness in the comparisons drawn between police custody and prisons. It was also described as “theoretically sophisticated” and that the drawing together of theories about governance and legitimacy were beneficial. However, my ‘critics’ would have liked a more sociological than socio-legal account, with more time being also being devoted to explaining my research methods, as well as to researching the police investigation. The comments of the reviewers should hopefully appear in book reviews in the not to distant future, including in Criminology and Criminal Justice.

After the BSC, I dashed straight off to a stop and search workshop organised by Professor Ben Bowling (KCL) and Dr Leanne Weber (Monash University). This was a truly wonderful and intellectually stimulating event which reminded me of why I am an academic. Speakers from around the world – from Canada, the USA, Japan, The Netherlands, India, South Africa and Australia to name a few - were invited to speak about stop and search practices, linking these micro-level practices to macro-level global trends such as populist punitiveness and the criminalisation of immigrants. The organisers created a truly collegiate and collaborative atmosphere, which prompted a terrific amount of thought-provoking discussion. Look out for the papers from this workshop in a special issue of Policing and Society, which is due out in a few months time.

National Custody Officer Forum – Wymondham, 20 July 2011

Yesterday I gave a talk for the National Custody Officer Forum about findings from my book. Since my talk was shortly before a visit to the nearby Wymondham Police Investigation Centre which is a facility shared by Norfolk/Suffolk Constabularies and has been built through a public finance initiative (PFI), I focused on chapter six of my book on plural policing and police custody. This chapter examines the role of civilians in police custody, who are either employed by the police or by private security companies and work alongside police officers.

The use of PFIs is not unusual in police custody, though as yet I have not come across any research on how many there are up and down the country. A PFI is when the private sector work in partnership with the police to design, build and finance a police custody facility and the police pay to use it. Contracts between the police and the private sector are typically issued for 25-30 years. Sometimes the private sector also provide staff who work in the custody area, alongside custody officers (who are police sergeants). This was certainly the case in Sunnyside, the pseudonym I gave to the PFI site in my research. It contrasted with the second site in my research, Gormiston, which is a police-run custody area, involving custody officers and civilians employed by the police.

PFIs are controversial. Some are in favour, saying that they save money, in part because they open up the public sector to competition. For example, Michael Gove’s has recently supported a £2bn PFI programme for building new schools. Others are not. PFIs have been described as an “elegant piece of hire purchase”, which effectively keeps the cost of facilities ‘off the books’ (Johnston, Buttons and Williamson, 2008: 227). Moreover, there is an assumption that PFIs are cost-effective, but the evidence about whether they yield the anticipated savings remains unclear. Of course, there are also the moral objections about profit being prioritised over justice.

What is curious about these developments in relation to police custody is that they have received little public debate. For example, I just searched ‘Google News’ under the terms ‘PFI and police custody’ and ‘PFI and policing’ and this generated less than 5 ‘hits’. Yet if you search under the terms ‘prisons and privatization UK’ you generate about 18 ‘hits’. Anecdotally, when I talk to taxi-drivers, neighbours or other members of the public about what I do, nearly all are surprised to hear that police custody has been subject to this form of privatization.

Without giving away too much of what I say in my book or of what I said during my presentation yesterday, my research suggests a mixture of findings about the effects of civilianization and privatization on police, civilian police staff and suspects.

Finally, many thanks to the various people that invited me to talk and made me feel welcome yesterday. There was lots of interesting and lively discussion, which showed how fruitful conversations can be between academics and practitioners.

Conference season is nigh

I've got a couple of events coming up over the next few weeks. The first is on Friday 17 June. I am giving a research seminar for the Metropolitan Police Service about the findings from my study of police custody in England, based on my recently published book. The details of this talk are as follows:

The aim of this seminar it to provide feedback to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) from a recent study comparing two police custody suites, one of which is in the MPS Area. This study examined police custody from start to finish, considering who works there and what it is like for them and for the suspects who are detained there. A key focus of the study was the civilianization and privatization of police custody. Consequently, data were collected in the custody suite in the MPS, which was staffed by police officers and non-warranted civilians (designated detention officers), as well as in a custody suite in a different police service area, which had been refurbished and was managed and largely staffed by a private security company as part of a public-finance initiative. The seminar will provide a ‘flavour’ of the findings from the study, exploring conditions in police custody; staff and suspect experiences of working or being detained there; suspect access to their rights and entitlements; police and police staff roles and responsibilities and relationships with each other and with suspects; relationships between the police and other key criminal justice practitioners such as drug legal advisors, medical staff, appropriate adults and drug workers. To conclude, we will examine what can be learned from the study about improving police custody practices.

I have also organised an 'author meets critics' panel at the British Society of Criminology Conference 4-6 July at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle. The 'critics' are Professor David Dixon, University of New South Wales; Dr Megan O'Neill, University of Salford; and Professor Robert Reiner, London School of Economics. They will each offer their comments and critical reflections on my book, Police Custody: Governance, legitimacy and reform in the criminal justice process. 

'Inspecting' the inspectors

The last time I wrote I was about to give a paper at the British Society of Criminology Yorkshire and Humber inaugural event. This seemed to go well. One of the points I made in this conference presentation is that my research showed that decisions about suspects in police custody are made on a much more discretionary basis in the jurisdiction in the U.S., compared to the jurisdiction in Australia and in Ireland and England and Wales. One member of the audience pointed out to me, though, if such decisions are largely made on a discretionary basis, then this probably amounts to no due process at all for suspects.

Since then, I've finished the marking for my new module on policing in a global context. Since this module drew to a close, a few students have reported to me how much they enjoyed it, saying it was one of the most interesting ones that they have taken during their time in Sheffield. I hope this is true across the board. Thanks are definitely due to my colleague, Matthew Bacon, who led all the seminars for the module and who helped enhance students' experiences and understanding no end.

Recently, I also had a great opportunity to shadow a police custody inspection. This involved observing and talking to staff from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, as they went about their business of jointly inspecting police custody facilities in one police service. These inspection processes were not in place when I conducted my research on police custody in 2006/7 and for this reason it was extremely interesting to see how they were approached. Thanks are due to all those who made it possible for me to accompany these inspectors. The reports from all of the inspections conducted over the last three years are publicly available and provide a vital window into this aspect of policing.