Children aged from 10 to 17 are being arrested by the police and detained overnight in adult custody suites because more appropriate responses are not available in England and Wales, a major research project has found. The researchers recommend clearer guidance for police officers and a presumption in favour of less intrusive alternatives.
Six out of 10 children arrested by response officers — even for something as trivial as a domestic tantrum — are released with no further action. But the researchers have found that, far from being a deterrent, detaining children in custody acts as a gateway to the youth justice system.
The researchers conclude that the government’s commitment to a “child first” principle — treating young suspects as a children first and offenders second — will remain no more than a principle for as long as decisions on whether a child enters the criminal justice system are made by police officers who lack the training, guidance, information, institutional support and input from partner agencies needed to make decisions in a fully-informed way.
Academics worked collaboratively on the study with Greater Manchester Police, the Metropolitan Police, Surrey Police and South Wales Police.
Four forces have already accepted an earlier recommendation from the project about the length of time that children should be detained by the police. Although the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 allows adults and children to be detained for up to 24 hours, those forces now work on the basis of a 12-hour maximum for children aged from 10 to 17. In Surrey, this has reduced their average detention period from about 11 hours to just over 7½ hours.
The research was led by Dr Vicky Kemp from the University of Nottingham and Dr Miranda Bevan of King’s College London. Their report — Children and Policing in England and Wales: Adopting a Child First Approach — is supported by the Nuffield Foundation and was published last week.
I interviewed Kemp (pictured) yesterday for the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. My podcast, in which you can also hear from children who spoke to the researchers, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.
