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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:01 am
Time: 12:01 am
Results for prisoner escort
2 results foundAuthor: Northern Ireland. Criminal Justice Inspection Title: An Inspection of Prisoner Escort and Court Custody Arrangements in Northern Ireland Summary: The provision of safe, humane and efficient custody transport arrangements provides an important contribution to the efficient operation of the criminal justice system. This inspection reviewed the provision of court custody and transport services to determine whether the treatment and conditions experienced by prisoners and other court users in court custody are decent, respectful, safe and secure. In addition we also sought to determine whether the service was undertaken in an efficient manner that supported the administration of justice across Northern Ireland. The assessment framework used during the inspection focused on the treatment of prisoners at court and during transport, court custody facilities and conditions, safety and security and the overall efficiency of the service provided. Our overall assessment is that the current court custody and transport arrangements are operated to an acceptable standard in terms of the service provided to prisoners and the courts service, although the quality of court facilities was extremely variable. In the main, prisoners are treated in a safe and humane manner and the service in general meets the needs of the court system. In 2009 escapes were kept to a minimum, no releases were made in error and prisoners in the majority of cases turned up at court on time for their court appearance. The number of assaults on prisoners by prisoners was low. The inspection identified a number of areas where the treatment of prisoners could be improved including the need for a more consistent approach to the handcuffing of prisoners by the service providers. Good practice suggests, and we would endorse, that prisoners should not be routinely handcuffed when travelling in secure vehicles unless individual risk assessments demonstrate a high level of risk. Male and female prisoners should always be transported separately. The overall efficiency of the escorting and court custody service is not easily measured, comprising as it does of four main agencies and a number of providers, each with their own way of undertaking business. In line with practice elsewhere we suggest there would be benefits in undertaking a full market test of the court custody services currently undertaken on behalf of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Youth Justice Agency. Details: Belfast: Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland, 2010. 47p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 15, 2010 at: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/cc/cc81a484-6109-4d33-95db-5b9d71df3883.PDF Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/cc/cc81a484-6109-4d33-95db-5b9d71df3883.PDF Shelf Number: 119979 Keywords: Court CustodyPrisoner EscortPrisonersPrisoners, Treatment |
Author: Great Britain. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons Title: Court Custody: Urgent Improvement Required Summary: Anyone can end up in court custody: the guilty and the innocent; those who are a threat to the safety of others and those who are a danger to themselves; healthy adults, children and those with the range of mental health and substance misuse problems familiar from police and prison custody. This thematic review of my inspectorate's first eight inspections of court custody in England draws together findings from our inspections of 97 courthouses with custody facilities between August 2012 and August 2014. In short, we found some of the worst custody conditions we have inspected. The treatment of detainees and the conditions in custody suites were very low priorities for the different organisations involved, which failed to adequately coordinate their custody roles. We could find almost no one at local or national level who accepted overall accountability for this state of affairs or saw it as their responsibility to address our recommendations. The treatment and conditions we found were the consequence. We found filthy, squalid cells covered in old graffiti. The needs of women, children or other detainees with particular needs were often not understood or addressed. Routine security measures were often disproportionate or inconsistent. Complaint processes in most courts, in practice, were non-existent. Health care was inadequate. Of most concern and despite, in many cases, the best efforts of custody staff, we found a dangerous disregard for the risks detainees might pose to themselves or others. Court custody is an accident waiting to happen. The pockets of good practice inspectors found, and the fact that most court custody staff tried hard to treat people in court custody decently, shows it is not inevitable that poor conditions and degrading, unsafe practices will prevail. This report identifies some examples of good practice and draws together the key recommendations necessary to make the urgent improvement required. Our inspections of courts custody are part of the UK's obligations arising from its status as a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT), which requires state parties to establish a system of independent, preventive inspection of all places of detention. We began our inspections of court custody in 2012 and developed expectations (inspection criteria) and an inspection methodology that reflect the inspection methods we use in other places of detention. Our expectations of court custody are modest. We expect there to be a clear strategy for and leadership of the custody function; that detainees are held for the shortest time possible; and that their rights are respected. While they are in custody we expect them to be safe and treated decently according to their individual needs. We expect any health needs they have to be dealt with effectively. We found that no single organisation exercised any effective leadership for court custody provision at local or national level. Management of court custody operations is spread between several organisations which do not always communicate effectively with each other. No organisation has a good overall picture of the situation and in my view this explains why, in many clusters, physical conditions were poor, with deep cleaning and decorating clearly neglected for years. The valuable insights of Lay Observers - whose independent scrutiny of court custody is of pivotal importance - are often overlooked. The contract management process, while in many ways robust, has rarely led to significant improvements in outcomes for detainees because contract monitoring is focused largely on timeliness and security. These are imperative, but detainee care needs equivalent attention. Timely delivery of detainees to court is important, but it is concerning that so little priority is given to ensuring detainees do not spend inordinately long periods in court cells after their appearance is over. Meanwhile deficits in aspects of detainee care, such as risk assessment, where poor care could result in serious harm, are allowed to remain almost entirely unaddressed. Established practices that are applied unquestioningly tend to cause the greatest disadvantage to the most vulnerable detainees. These include the longer journeys experienced by young people, the practice of transferring women on the same vehicles as men, and the handcuffing of disabled detainees in public. Little importance is placed on detainees being given information about their rights in court custody. In practice there are no workable complaint processes. Of most concern is the lack of any meaningful risk assessment when detainees arrive in court custody or are released. Custody staff often received very vague information about risks in person escort record forms, and were often reluctant to talk with detainees to help clarify concerns. A few custody staff did attempt to ask detainees how they were feeling, or about what had happened when they had harmed themselves before, but it was often clear that they lacked training in risk assessment. This meant that serious risks - including risks that detainees might harm themselves or others, lapse from sleep into coma, or become ill while in custody - were not managed. Cell sharing risk assessments, necessary at busy times when detainees had to share cells, were rarely properly conducted. Some senior custody officers were 'too busy' to do them and did not consider delegating the task to another custody officer. Important changes, such as the introduction of new cell sharing risk assessments, were often communicated to custody staff without a thorough briefing that would help to ensure their purpose was understood. The implementation of such changes was poorly monitored. On release, pre-release risk planning was unusual with, on most occasions, only a travel warrant given to vulnerable detainees. Most did not benefit from custody staff exercising any ongoing duty of care. This is in sharp contrast to our findings in police custody inspections, despite there being similar issues on release. Unlike courts, most police services recognise they have a duty of care that extends beyond the confines of the custody suite. Often, HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) managers were unaware of how bad conditions in the cells were, or claimed that detainees only spent a couple of hours in them. In reality, we found that many detainees spent eight or 10 hours in a tiny cell with no natural light, and sometimes no heating, that might be filthy or covered in graffiti, on a hard wooden or plastic bench with nothing to do. We found some conditions that were a threat to the health of people working in or detained at the suite. Provision for people who were pregnant, elderly or disabled was almost always inadequate. Custody staff had little awareness of the needs of children: it was rare for any allowance to be made for their age and concerns and children were sometimes detained for long periods without adequate supervision and reassurance. Physical health care was poor, with treatment and medication often delayed in the belief it would be provided later in prison or police custody. The first aid equipment was often insufficient for the type of emergencies likely to occur. Mental health, often linked to what was available in the court itself, was better. These finding are not acceptable. In each section of this report we set out key recommendations from each of the eight individual court inspections we have undertaken and we continue to expect these to be addressed. Details: London: HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2015. 45p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 30, 2016 at: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/11/Court-custody-urgent-improvement-required-corrected.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/11/Court-custody-urgent-improvement-required-corrected.pdf Shelf Number: 138478 Keywords: Court CustodyDetention FacilitiesPrisoner EscortPrisoners, TreatmentPrisons |