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IPCC Publishes Report on Deaths in or Following Police Custody
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has published a study of the 333 deaths in or following police custody between 1998/99 and 2008/09. This study was carried out in order to identify trends in the data, examine the nature of the deaths and to identify lessons that can be learnt to prevent future deaths from occurring.
The report makes a number of recommendations for police forces and health service provides to help prevent further tragedies:
- Police forces and local health service providers and commissioners should adopt the ACPO Safer Detention Guidelines (2006) and develop protocols on the care of intoxicated detainees;
- ACPO should ensure that training manuals clearly state which restraint techniques are unauthorised, and which should only be used for a maximum length of time;
- Police forces should emphasise to custody personnel the risks around head injuries being masked by intoxication;
- Police forces should ensure that CCTV is available in at least one cell in the custody suite, to be used when a detainee is identified as being at risk;
- Healthcare professionals should ensure that their directions for custody staff on the frequency of checks required for a detainee are written in the custody record, in addition to being verbally passed on; and
- Police forces should adopt procedures to ensure that custody officers and staff adhere to PACE Code C with respect to risk assessing, checking and rousing.
The full report, ‘Deaths in or following police custody: An examination of the cases 1998/99 - 2008/09’ is available at http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/Documents/Deaths_In_Custody_Report.pdf
