A Child's Journey Through Police Custody And Their Legal Rights

Kemp, Vicky; Carr, Nicola

Abstract

In this chapter we explore a child’s journey through police custody and while the intention was to explore the impact of Covid-19 on children’s experiences, we found little differences in practice at the time the fieldwork was conducted. However, this was the first time in England and Wales that researchers engaged with children while held in police custody about their legal rights. After first commenting on children’s international legal rights, particularly under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and also in police custody, we explore what happens in practice. The child’s journey begins when they are booked into police custody, and we explore police decisions when authorising detention, conducting a risk assessment, explaining their legal rights and entitlements, and conducting searches. The next stage involves placing a child in a cell to await the police interview and we examine first contact with their appropriate adult and also the type of legal advice and first contact with their lawyer. It is of concern to note that in most cases children have to wait until the police interview before speaking to these adults, which is often many hours following their detention, even though this is contrary to their legal rights. Next explored is a child’s participation in the police interview and, thereafter, consideration of the outcome decision. In conclusion, by listening to children’s experiences while detained, our research identifies a fundamentally flawed system that does not deal with children as children in the first instance.

Citation

Kemp, V., & Carr, N. (2023). A Child's Journey Through Police Custody And Their Legal Rights. In E. Johnston (Ed.), Covid-19 and Criminal Justice: Impact and Legacy in England and Wales (62-89). Taylor & Francis (Routledge). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003281481-5

• Online Publication Date: Jun 23, 2023
• Publication Date: Jun 23, 2023
• Deposit Date: Nov 22, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 24, 2024
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Pages: 62-89
• Book Title: Covid-19 and Criminal Justice: Impact and Legacy in England and Wales
• Chapter Number: 5
• ISBN: 9781032250847
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003281481-5
• Keywords: Child suspects, legal rights, child-first, police custody, children's voices
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/14030667
• Related Public URLs: https://www.routledge.com/Covid-19-and-Criminal-Justice-Impact-and-Legacy-in-England-and-Wales/Johnston/p/book/9781032250847
• Additional Information: It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.