Care Detained: A Critical Analysis of Healthcare Delivery in Police Custody Suites

Care Detained draws on the findings of the first interdisciplinary study of the delivery of healthcare within police custody in England to illuminate the ways that the funding structure results in poor quality care and treatment for detained persons.

The book traces the transition from police doctors to Healthcare Professionals (predominantly nurses and paramedics working in police custody) and the ways that they have developed strong teamworking relationships with police staff. Given low rates of investment, HCPs are increasingly spread across multiple custody suites, making it harder to deliver care to all who need it and generating compassion fatigue. In this way, stigmatised attitudes about detainees take hold, which results in healthcare practices that produce harm. Care Detained also highlights how the underfunding of NHS Health and Social Care results in persons with significant mental health conditions being detained in police custody, although all parties (including police and mental health teams) acknowledge that custody is harmful. In the absence of hospital beds, sick people continue to be detained in police custody. The book concludes with a call for more joined-up thinking between healthcare and criminal justice institutions (and budgets) to provide improved healthcare for people detained by the State.

This book will therefore be of interest to students and scholars of criminology and policing studies, as well as sociology, anthropology and public health. It will also be a useful resource for policing practitioners, healthcare professionals, and policymakers engaged in these areas.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 International license.