Custodial Deaths and Racial Disparities in the UK

Introduction

In the UK, the number of people who died in police custody from 1990 to 2018 stands at 1649, of which 14 percent individuals belong to the Black and Ethnic Minorities (Inquest, 2018). There are many controversial aspects of custodial deaths, predominant amongst which is the issue of race and its impact on how police treats suspects and those in detention.

Literature Review

Death in police custody or police detention: The issue of race

Race is an important factor of consideration in context of custodial deaths because death in custody and the numbers of custodial deaths of Black and Ethnic Minority prisoners has been highlighted in research as well as popular imagination. It is generally believed that the higher numbers of deaths in police custody are of those who belong to the Black and Ethnic Minorities communities. The issue of death in police custody is controversial because despite there being safeguards and regulations and legislations, there have been cases where death in custody has happened in the UK. There are also patterns of contact between BME individuals and the criminal justice system, which often point at the presence of institutional racism as explained below:

“This pattern of mistreatment and ‘over-policing’ is also evident in the use of police violence. The first people to die as a result of the introduction of the long-handled baton and CS gas were black. Deaths in police custody show the same pattern too. Police assaults against black people, or use of excessive force, have been so widespread that an increasing number of civil actions have been taken out against the police, and in particular against the Metropolitan Police. The annual amount of compensation paid out by the Met increased from £393,000 in 1986 to £1,560,000 in 1995. The damages awarded to one man in March 1996 were a record £220,000” (Beynon & Kushnick, 2009, pp. 232-233).

IPCC and Inquiries into Custodial Deaths

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) conducts inquiries into cases where death in custody have occurred. However, the role of IPCC has often been criticised. This section will discuss the IPCC, its powers and functions with relation to inquiries into custodial deaths. Examples of actual custodial deaths and consequent IPCC inquiries are used to analyse the role played by IPCC and the extent to which it has managed to impact or control the rate of custodial deaths in the UK.

The case of Mark Duggan, a 29 years old man with three small children who was shot by the police exemplifies the controversies related with custodial deaths, one of these being the perceived racialized nature of custodial deaths. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) conducted an inquiry into the incident but even the inquiry was criticised as it gave a clean sheet to all the involved police officers on the ground that Duggan pointed a gun at the police while the inquest jury concluded that Duggan had thrown the gun away before he was shot (Slater, 2011). Mark Duggan’s case has led to the reinforcement of the perceptions of institutional racism and its links with how BME suspects are treated by the police when they are in custody or detention. These perceptions are often backed by evidence in literature that reveals that young minority ethnic groups are continually antagonised by the police and that the latter treats people from minority communities as offenders and suspects due to their race (Briggs, 2012).

The Christopher Alder case is also relevant here as this case became a subject of inquiry in the UK, and then in a petition before the European Court of Human Rights (Brayne, 2014). Christopher Alder was a Black 37-year old former British army paratrooper who was assaulted outside a nightclub and later arrested by the police on the charges of breach of peace (Brayne, 2014). One of the controversial aspects of this case is that the CCTV footage shows a sober Christopher getting into the police van outside the nightclub but being dragged out from the van at the police station some time later (Brayne, 2014). The question of why Christopher had to be dragged out of the van became more controversial because Christopher died on the floor of the police station and post mortem revealed that the head injury sustained by Christopher outside the nightclub did not kill him (Brayne, 2014). This led to an inquiry into the possible negligence by the police officers and the eventual apology by the British government to Christopher’s family in the European Court of Justice for their failure to prevent his death and conduct a fair inquiry into his death (Brayne, 2014). The IPCC inquiry was called but failed to satisfy on account of being fair to the victim as one of the criticism of the IPCC in custodial deaths is that it can be partial towards the officers (Hargreaves, 2014).

The issue of police custodial deaths is one of the major reasons behind various instances of radical reforms (Somers,Rezansoff, & Moniruzzaman, 2014). The IPCC is one these reforms. However, the actual cases and inquiries may indicate that the IPCC has not been successful in holding the police officers to account for custodial deaths.

PACE – Excessive Force

The changes or reform of laws relating to contact between individuals and the criminal justice system have been called by the incidents of excessive use of force by police at times. One of the legislations that is an important part of this reform is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE 1984), which was enacted to provide the application of due process of individuals who are arrested or detained (Turpin & Tomkins, 2011, p. 39). PACE 1984 provides important safeguards for the protection of the rights of suspects. The PACE 1984 is an important part of the human rights approach that is extended to the suspects and detainees. As such, the PACE 1984 provides the framework within which police powers are to be exercised with respect to treatment of the suspects and detainees (Fenwick, 2014).

The issue of custodial deaths has refused to die down even after the enactment of PACE 1984. Custodial deaths have happened even after the enactment of this legislation. Moreover, the race angle of custodial deaths has continued to attract attention as is noted below:

“The Institute of Race Relations identified a pattern of almost seventy deaths of black people in custody between 1987 and 1991. Inquest, a non-governmental organization working directly with the families of those who die in custody, identified thirty-seven Black custodial deaths between 1991 and February 1996 of which fourteen were in police custody. The Institute of Race Relations evidence to the Stephen Lawrence inquiry indicated that 67 per cent of people knew someone who had experienced physical abuse by a police officer; 40 per cent had personally experienced racial abuse from an officer; 78 per cent believed that police treated a crime in which the victim was white more seriously than one with a black victim; and 64 per cent of black inmates said they had witnessed an average of eight incidents over the same period” (Beynon, & Kushnick, 2003, p. 242).

Custody Visiting Officer Providing Protection

The scheme of custody visiting allows volunteers to attend police stations for the purpose of checking on the treatment of detainees in the custody of the police and reporting on the conditions in which detainees are held. Custody officers seek to report on the rights and entitlements of the detainees and the manner in which the police stations are responding to these rights. This is a way for providing protections to both detainees and the police because the latter can be at times thought of as prima facie liable for any harm to the detainee due to public perception, whereas custody visiting may indicate that detainees and those in custody are treated as per the law by the police.

Findings and Discussion

Conclusion

Bibliography

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• Turpin, C., & Tomkins, A. (2011). British Government and Constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

More sources:

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