Overnight detention of children in police custody in 2020
Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.023230
I note you seek access to the following information:
A. Please provide us with the following information in relation to your police force for the year 2020 (from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020):
1. How does your police force define overnight detention of a child in police custody? If possible, please provide what time does overnight detention begins and ends, and if there is a required minimum number of hours of detention according to your definition?
2. How many children (those under 18 at the time of detention) were detained overnight (for 4 or more hours between the hours of 0000 and 0800) in police custody? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
Arrest warrants
3. How many children were detained overnight in police custody following an arrest warrant being issued by a court? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
4. Can you provide details of the detention period for those children detained overnight in police custody following an arrest warrant being issued by a court (Question 3)? If possible, please provide the day of the week at the time of arrest, how long they were detained for, and during which hours of the day.
Pre-charge detention
5. How many children detained overnight in police custody were detained pre-charge? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
6. How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted pre-charge bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
7. How many children detained overnight in police custody were grated pre-charge conditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
8. How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted pre-charge unconditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
Post-charge detention
10. How many children detained overnight in police custody were detained post-charge? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
11. How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted post-charge bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
12. How many children detained overnight in police custody were grated post-charge conditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
13. How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted post-charge unconditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
Section 38 PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984) transfers
17. How many requests were made under section 38(6) PACE by your police force to a local authority to transfer children detained overnight in police custody post-charge to local authority accommodation?
18. How many requests were made under section 38(6) PACE for secure accommodation for children detained overnight in police custody post-charge?
19. How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were transferred to secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
20. How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were not transferred to secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
21. How many requests were made under section 38(6) PACE for non-secure accommodation for children detained overnight in police custody post-charge?
22. How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were transferred to non-secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
23. How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were not transferred to non-secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
B. the top level figure of the number of children detained overnight in 2021? Q2. How many children (those under 18 at the time of detention) were detained overnight (for 4 or more hours between the hours of 0000 and 0800) in police custody?
I appreciate you may only be able to provide top level data for 2021, however it would be of immense value if this and only this information only was broken down by ethnicity (and age). Ethnicity data for the top level value of total number of children detained overnight is of particular importance for our research.
Decision
I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.
Please find below information pursuant to your request above.
• I have decided to provide you with a full disclosure of the information that could be located within the appropriate threshold of 18 hours, as explained within my previous response (01/FOI/21/022632).
• I have decided to provide you with a breakdown of personal details in question 2 - which have been presented in this way to ensure there is no breach of the Data Protection Act.
• It is not possible to provide details of a detainee’s disability (if held) as this would require a member of police staff manually reading each custody record, which would exceed the appropriate threshold under the Act.
QA - Please provide us with the following information in relation to your police force for the year 2020 (from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020):
Q1 - How does your police force define overnight detention of a child in police custody? If possible, please provide what time does overnight detention begins and ends, and if there is a required minimum number of hours of detention according to your definition?
Overnight detention is defined as any continuous 4-hour period between 00:00 hours and 08:00 hours (as agreed with the Howard League).
Q2 - How many children (those under 18 at the time of detention) were detained overnight (for 4 or more hours between the hours of 0000 and 0800) in police custody? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
7,418 detainees (aged under 18) were detained overnight for the period 1 January to 31 December 2020. Please see attached spreadsheet for the breakdown of age, sex, detainee Self Ethnicity Description, nationality and type of offence [1st tab marked - Summary]. Please note that this personal information has been aggregated to ensure there is no breach of the Data Protection Act and enables the MPS to provide you with these details.
Q3 - How many children were detained overnight in police custody following an arrest warrant being issued by a court? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
166 detainees were detained overnight following an arrest warrant issued by a court. Please see the breakdown for question 2 for further personal details.
Q4 - Can you provide details of the detention period for those children detained overnight in police custody following an arrest warrant being issued by a court (Question 3)? If possible, please provide the day of the week at the time of arrest, how long they were detained for, and during which hours of the day.
Please note that we are unable to provide day of week/time arrested/hours which would require a manual search of each custody record and would exceed the appropriate threshold.
We are able to provide the total detention times, which can be found in the attached spreadsheet [2nd tab - Detention hours]. This has been calculated from the time detention authorised until the end of detention time.
Q5 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were detained pre-charge? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
776 detainees were detained overnight pre-charge. Please see the breakdown for question 2 for further personal details.
Q6 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted pre-charge bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
36 detainees detained overnight were granted pre charge bail (including conditional bail). Please see the breakdown for question 2 for further personal details.
Q7 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were grated pre-charge conditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
See question 6.
Q8 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted pre-charge unconditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
The figure for this question is nil.
Q10 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were detained post-charge? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
1,067 detainees were detained overnight post charge. Please see the breakdown for question 2 for further personal details.
Q11 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted post-charge bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
87 detainees detained overnight were granted post charge bail. Please see the breakdown for question 2 for further personal details.
Q12 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were grated post-charge conditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
19 detainees detained overnight were granted post charge conditional bail. Please see the breakdown for question 2 for further personal details.
Q13 - How many children detained overnight in police custody were granted post-charge unconditional bail? If possible, please provide a breakdown of these children by their age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, type of disability and type of crime.
68 detainees detained overnight were granted post charge unconditional bail. Please see the breakdown for question 2 for further personal details.
Q17 - How many requests were made under section 38(6) PACE by your police force to a local authority to transfer children detained overnight in police custody post-charge to local authority accommodation?
Please note that details regarding Accomodation are recorded in free text on the NSPIS system and cannot be extracted by automatic means. This would require a manual search of every custody record returned for questions 17 – 23 and would exceed the appropriate threshold. We are able to provide accomodation details where these have been reviewed and manually logged - but these do not show if they relate to pre-charge or post-charge period.
There were 992 requests for local authority accommodation.
Q18 - How many requests were made under section 38(6) PACE for secure accommodation for children detained overnight in police custody post-charge?
There were 458 requests for secure local authority accommodation.
Q19 - How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were transferred to secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
There was 1 detainee who was transferred to secure local authority accommodation.
Q20 - How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were not transferred to secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
A total of 457 detainees were not transferred to secure local authority accommodation.
Q21 - How many requests were made under section 38(6) PACE for non-secure accommodation for children detained overnight in police custody post-charge?
There were 534 requests for non-secure local authority accommodation.
Q22 - How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were transferred to non-secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
A total of 79 detainees were transferred to non-secure local authority accommodation.
Q23 - How many children detained overnight in police custody post-charge were not transferred to non-secure accommodation following a request under section 38(6) PACE?
A total of 459 detainees were not transferred to non-secure local authority accommodation.
QB - The top level figure of the number of children detained overnight in 2021?
Q2. How many children (those under 18 at the time of detention) were detained overnight (for 4 or more hours between the hours of 0000 and 0800) in police custody?
I appreciate you may only be able to provide top level data for 2021, however it would be of immense value if this and only this information only was broken down by ethnicity (and age). Ethnicity data for the top level value of total number of children detained overnight is of particular importance for our research.
5,706 detainees (aged under 18) were detained overnight for the period 1 January to 31 December 2021. Please see attached spreadsheet for the breakdown of age and detainee Self Ethnicity Description [1st tab marked - Summary]