Deaths during police apprehension and in police custodial detention

ABSTRACT

Australian deaths in custody are reported by the Australian Institute of Criminology’s National Deaths in Custody Program (NDICP). This metric includes deaths occurring in prison, police custody and youth detention. It also includes deaths during police apprehensions where a person is being taken into custody, police officer-involved shootings, and other specific police operations. This paper considers the merit of such an approach and calls for expanding the NDICP mandate to collect national-level data.

KEYWORDS:

• Australian police
• deaths in custody
• officer-involved shootings
• police apprehension
• police custody

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See https://www.ag.gov.au/about-us/who-we-are/committees-and-councils/police-ministers-council

2 The key methodological difference between the two datasets is that the NDIPC set counts an event after a coronial investigation whereas the SBD set counts a death as it is reported in the media.

3 These Australian data were collated from a systematic search of press and media reports of OIS using electronic media databases and official reports.

4 The 27 cases were analyzed on the basis that a person died ‘during arrest or detention by the police’ and includes deaths while persons are in police custodial detention as well as those who died while detained and are being conveyed by police to a mental health facility (Independent Police Conduct Authority, 2012, p. 11). Importantly, the IPCA exclude cases where a person is being ‘taken into custody’ that would be included in the Australian measure.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by British Academy: [grant no VF2\100596].