Informed by data extracted from 30,921 police electronic custody records, drawn from 44 police stations across four police force areas and including 5,153 records of juveniles aged 10 to 17 years, this article examines the take-up of legal advice by children and young people in police stations in England and Wales. There are wide variations in the extent to which juveniles request and receive legal advice when compared to adults but also between juveniles of different ages. Such variations are explored both in relation to the age of detainees and the type and seriousness of offence and case disposal. Also examined are variations based on different police force areas. The implications emanating from children's differential access to legal advice at police stations are considered in relation to children's rights.
The target was amended in 2008 to encourage the police to concentrate their efforts on bringing more serious offences to justice and in 2010 it was abandoned -see Padfield et al. 2012 and Kemp 2014. 8 A more detailed account of the methodology is set out in ch. 2. 9 Non-lawyers can provide police station legal advice if they have been accredited to do so (see Hodgson and Kemp 2015, p. 139. 10 The cases were drawn from those pleading not guilty at court and so they had not been convicted at the time the tapes were examined. 17 This approach was observed in the four jurisdictions in the Inside Police Custody study: see Blackstock et al 2014, ch. 5, especially p. 243-255. Research has shown that suspects can become confused about their legal rights, particularly if read out quickly and/or unintelligibly by the police. This could be either due to the routine way in which custody officers regularly read out to suspects their legal rights or as a ploy designed to discourage them from having legal advice: see Kemp 2012, p. 28-33.
While studies have explored adult suspects’ understanding of their legal rights, seldom are the experiences of children and young people taken into account. In this article, we discuss findings arising out of research interviews conducted with 61 children and young people; many of whom have experience of being suspects. From listening to their points-of-view, we find that children and young people fundamentally lack understanding of the rights of suspects, and especially the inalienable nature of those rights. We argue this is not surprising when children are being dealt with in an adult-centred punitive system of justice, which is contrary to international human rights standards.
The cost of administering and funding legal aid in England and Wales is in excess of two billion pounds. A recent study of private law family cases highlights how the current scheme tends to focus narrowly on particular legal issues and creates incentives for litigation rather than informal negotiation. Survey findings of legal need help to highlight that people experience a wide range of problems and often fail to receive proper help and support. Innovations taking place in both the developing and developed world can help to illustrate how legal services can expand and develop to reach out to those most vulnerable in society. To target civil legal needs and to match services to needs, it is argued that the legal aid scheme needs to broaden out and effectively link in with other forms of advice and support in order to provide joined up solutions to legal problems.
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