Reform of police custody: piecemeal tweaks, defunding, abolition or transformation?

Abstract

This paper argues for the substantial reduction of the ambit of police custody, and for the regulation of police conduct in custody blocks. Detention in custody is widely used by the police to apply pressure on suspects to make confessions. This is oppressive and wasteful. Custody should be used much more sparingly and only where detention is necessary for safety reasons. Custody can in any case be a dangerous place for detainees. An average of up to 23 people die in police custody every year, including four detainees from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Heritage, a greater proportion than their percentage of the population. Regulation of police conduct in custody blocks is supposed to be carried out by the little-known statutory Independent Custody Visiting Scheme. The scheme enables members of the public to make unannounced visits to police stations and to check and report on the welfare of detainees. As the result of government policy and the power of the police, the visiting scheme is neither independent nor effective, fails to challenge the police, makes no discernible impact on their behaviour or on the deaths in custody figures, provides no measure of police accountability, and obscures the need for urgent reform. This paper recommends immediate implementation of these reforms because they would save lives.