A place of safety? Self‐harming behaviour in police custody

Cummins, ID

doi:10.1108/14668203200800006

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…There is clearly the potential for this to have a negative impact on an individual's mental health. Police officers are called upon to manage very difficult situations such as self-harm or attempted suicide often with little training or support (Cummins, 2008). These are long standing issues and it would be wrong not to acknowledge that the progress that has been made in this area.…”

Section: Policing and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Cummins¹

2020

Policing and Mental Health

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This chapter will examine the current debates in England and Wales about the role of the police in responding to citizens experiencing some form of mental health crisis.The chapter will situate these debates in their historical context. It will also place them in the broader social policy context of austerity which has seen reductions in social welfare provision including significant reductions in police numbers (Cummins, 2018). The chapter considers some of the practice developments such as street triage that have arisen in response to the issues raised by police involvement in the mental health field. It then considers the broader notion of vulnerability arguing that Fineman (2004Fineman ( , 2008 provides a radical reshaping of this concept and one that can form the basis of a social state based on core values of mutuality and reciprocity. The chapter concludes that even the most well resourced mental health services will not be able to ensure that there are never any circumstances, in which, police officers are called to respond to individuals in mental health crisis. The aim should be limit the occurrence of these incidents and ensure that inter-disciplinary working means mental health professionals become involved at the earliest opportunity. This will involve significant investment in mental health services alongside other social welfare services. On a policy level, this means a rejection of austerity and the retrenchment of the welfare state. It will also require a radical reshaping of our notions of citizenship. AusterityPolicing cannot be considered in isolation from the broader economic, political and cultural context of the society, in which, it takes place. Since 2008, in the UK, Governments have followed a series of economy policies that have been shaped by the impact of the banking crisis of that year. It is now overlooked that in the aftermath of the bank bailout the Brown administration followed standard Keynesian economic approaches to stimulate demand (Cummins, 2018). These

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Section: Policing and Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Cummins¹

2020

Policing and Mental Health

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“…Generally, there are very limited services to assist the police in ensuring that distressed individuals remain safe and receive access to mental health care. As Cummins' (2007 and2008) studies of the work of custody sergeants shows the management of section 136 MHA is a source of considerable frustration for the police.…”

Section: The Role Of the Police In Modern Mental Health Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Policing and street triage

Cummins

Edmondson

2016

The Journal of Adult Protection

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In his recent report, Lord Adebowale (2013) described mental health issues as "core police business". The recent retrenchment in mental health and wider public services mean that the demands on the police in this area are likely to increase. Mental health triage is a concept that has been adapted from general and mental health nursing for use in a policing context. The overall aim of triage is to ensure more effective health outcomes and the more effective use of resources. This article examines the current policy and practice in this area. It then goes on to explore the models of mental health triage that have been developed to try and improve working between mental health services and the police.

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“…One study investigated 'near misses' or incidents that could have resulted in the serious illness or self-harm of a detainee, which were reported by the Forensic Medical Examiner (Bucke et al, 2008). The other study investigated the number of self-harm incidents recorded in custody records (Cummins, 2008). The study by Bucke et al estimated that there were around 1,000 near miss incidents a year across England and Wales, of which 40% may have resulted in death if intervention had not occurred (Bucke et al, 2008), whilst the other study found around 20 self-harm incidents a month in one police force (Cummins, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The other study investigated the number of self-harm incidents recorded in custody records (Cummins, 2008). The study by Bucke et al estimated that there were around 1,000 near miss incidents a year across England and Wales, of which 40% may have resulted in death if intervention had not occurred (Bucke et al, 2008), whilst the other study found around 20 self-harm incidents a month in one police force (Cummins, 2008). Another risk factor is the use of restraint which was recorded as a cause of death in around 10% of deaths over a ten-year period between 2004/05 and 2014/15 (Lindon and Roe, 2017), although this proportion may be higher as it cannot always be proven if the use of restraint was a direct contributory factor (IOPC, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced understanding of risk assessment in police custody in England and Wales using statistical modelling

et al. 2019

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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.

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A place of safety? Self‐harming behaviour in police custody

Cited by 14 publications

References 16 publications

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Policing, vulnerability and mental health

Policing and street triage

Enhanced understanding of risk assessment in police custody in England and Wales using statistical modelling

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