Britain
Police Custody Linked To 14 Deaths Last Year JUL 2016
Wednesday 27TH posted by Lamiat Sabin in Britain
Officers ‘lack skills in handling the vulnerable’
FOURTEEN people died in police custody or following their release in the most recent year for which records are available, official figures revealed yesterday. Officers had used body strikes and restraint against six of the 14 fatalities in 2015-16, although force may have not contributed to the latter deaths, according to watchdog the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Seven of the people who died in or after detention had mental health problems and 12 had been taking drugs or drinking. The death toll of 14 is lower than the 17 fatalities recorded in 2014-15, though that figure was the highest in five years. Sixty apparent suicides occurred during or after custody in 2015-16. Of these people, 22 had been arrested for alleged sex crimes, including 17 accused of child abuse. Thirty-three of the people believed to have taken their own lives were known to have mental health problems and 28 were under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. There is a “strong link” between mental illness and the number of fatalities, noted IPCC chair Dame Anne Owers. Police need more training, she warned, as “forces do not always have a clear and consistent understanding of vulnerability and how to manage it.” For the Police Federation, Detective Constable Karen Stephens complained that the police force is used as a “sticking plaster to solve society’s issues,” especially as government spending cuts remove other sources of support for the mentally ill. But Deborah Coles, director of custody and detention advice charity Inquest, said too many vulnerable people with mental health issues and dependencies suffer “poor treatment” in police detention. “The police are increasingly being called to respond to concerns about the health and wellbeing of vulnerable people,” she added. “This highlights the urgent need for an alternative approach to those in crisis.” Outside custody, police firearms officers killed three people: James Fox, 43, from Enfield, north London, Richard Davies, 41, from St Neots, Cambridgeshire, and Jermaine Baker, 28, from Wood Green, north London. In all three incidents, police apparently believed that the suspects had guns.
Thirteen deaths happened during police chases in 2015-16. The IPCC investigated 102 other deaths following police contact, more than double the 43 that were investigated in the previous year.
Related Tags: IPCC
Police brutality
Lamiat Sabin
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