Drawing on the first comprehensive study in England and Wales to review the police custody process from the perspective of children, Bevan traces the child's journey from arrest, through detention and interview, to release or remand. A rights-based approach is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the protection under the present legal framework.

To the United Nations

Children in Police Custody shines a light on the hidden experiences of children in police detention in England and Wales. An episode in police custody is the single most common sustained experience of the criminal justice system for children. Yet child suspects have previously been largely overlooked in criminological research. Drawing on the first comprehensive study in England and Wales to review the police custody process from the perspective of children, the chapters trace the child's journey from arrest, through detention and interview, to release or remand. Adopting a rights-based approach, this work investigates whether the present legal framework provides effective protection for child suspects. Utilising the detailed insights provided by young participants in the research, and supplemented by the author's fieldwork, this analysis reveals the complex challenges facing children's legal agency in the adversarial setting of the custody block. In so doing, it evaluates the capacity of the available protections to enable children's participation in that setting. A parallel criminological exploration examines the intersecting adversities experienced by child suspects, and the complex power dynamics they navigate in police custody, to arrive at an understanding of the particular harms of police detention for children and their longer-term impact. The book closes with a call for a retrenchment in the use of police custody for children, and a reappraisal of how those who must be detained should be supported to enable their effective participation in the criminal justice process, both in custody and beyond.

Police Custody in Ireland brings together experts from policing studies, law, criminology, and psychology, to critically examine contemporary police custody in Ireland, what we know about it, how it operates, how it is experienced, and how it might be improved. This first-of-its-kind collection focuses exclusively on detention in Garda Síochána stations, critically examining it from human rights and best practice perspectives. It examines the physical environment of custody, police interview techniques, existing protections, rights, and entitlements, and experiences of specific communities in custody, such as children, ethnic minorities, non-English speakers, the Mincéir/Traveller community, and those with intellectual disabilities or Autism Spectrum Disorder. Police Custody in Ireland gives a snapshot of garda custody as it is now and makes important recommendations for necessary future improvements. An accessible and compelling read, this book will be of interest to those engaged in policing and criminology, as well as related areas of interest such as human rights, youth justice and disability studies.