Every time a person is booked into police custody in England and Wales, they are assessed for risk of harm to themselves or others. National guidance is provided on what questions should be asked as part of this process; however, each year there are still instances of serious adverse incidents, self-harm and deaths in custody. The purpose of this study is to look at the extent to which the national guidance is being followed and the extent to which the risk assessment process varies between police forces. A Freedom of Information request was sent to all 43 police forces in England and Wales asking for information on their risk assessment process. This data was then analysed alongside findings from police custody inspection visits conducted by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. This study provides evidence that the risk assessment process is not consistent across police forces in England and Wales. Not only does the process vary from the national guidance, the content and delivery differs considerably between police forces. The findings highlight a practical problem for police forces in ensuring that risk assessment processes are conducted to a consistent standard and reflect national guidance. The study is, to the authors' knowledge, the first time that this data has been collated and compared.
The issue investigated in this paper is the risk assessment of detainees whilst they are booked into police custody in England and Wales. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people pass through police custody each year, with each detainee undergoing a risk assessment to establish risk of harm to themselves or to others. However, there has been little research to establish which risk factors identified through the current risk assessment process used within England and Wales have the most impact on risk management. Currently the analysis and evaluation of risk is subjective, based on the custody officer's judgement and experience. Little is known through literature as to which factors are most influential in this risk assessment process. This paper highlights these gaps in the process and identifies the driving factors in decision making around detainee risk in an attempt to understand the risk management process better before detailing what further research can be conducted to close the gap in the process. Multivariate analysis was carried out on a data-set comprising of custody record data from three police forces, in particular information recorded as part of the risk assessment. Logistic regression, decision tree and discriminant analysis methods were used as all have the ability to classify and predict. Comprehensive analysis and augmentation of results has determined a set of variables which had an influencing impact on observation level. These results provide the background to the development of a supportive and robust risk assessment tool.
When a person is booked into police custody in England and Wales they are assessed for risk of harm to themselves or to others. This risk assessment informs the decision as to what observation level they are placed on, ranging from hourly visits to constant observation for the highest risk detainees. In comparison to the international standard for risk management, there are gaps in the risk assessment process in police custody. Currently, the analysis and evaluation of identified risk is down to the experience and judgement of the Custody Officer, rather than a more structured method. This paper questions whether the process should be more formalized, using a statistical tool rather than relying on expert judgement. This paper uses a mixed methods approach investigating custody record data from three English police forces to identify key risk factors that lead to variances in observation levels, and interviewing sixteen Custody Officers from a further two forces investigating their perspective of the risk assessment process The findings suggest that whilst there are key factors affecting observation level, an entirely statistically based risk assessment process would lack the flexibility to account for the individual and would need to include additional information custody officers consider. It is concluded that further investigation should be conducted into a process which combines an actuarial approach with the intuitive insights gained from expert decision-making.
Everyday there are growing pressures to ensure that services are delivered efficiently, with high levels of quality and with acceptability of regulatory standards. For the Police Force, their service requirement is to the public, with the police officer presence being the most visible product of this criminal justice provision. Using historical data from over 10 years of operation, this research demonstrates the benefits of using data mining methods for knowledge discovery in regards to the crime and incident related elements which impact on the Police Force service provision. In the UK, a Force operates over a designated region (macro-level), which is further subdivided into Beats (micro-level). This research also demonstrates differences between the outputs of microlevel and macro-level analytics, where the lower level analysis enables adaptation of the operational Policing strategy. The evidence base provided through the analysis supports decisions regarding further investigations into the capability of flexible neighbourhood policing practices; alongside wider operations i.e. optimal officer training times.
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