New IAPDC workplan sets out priorities for preventing deaths in custody

Today we are publishing our workplan which sets out our priorities for 2024/25. We have committed to driving forward a number of key projects – spanning all the main areas of state detention – with the central aim of preventing both natural and self-inflicted deaths.

Projects include working collaboratively to improve investigations into, and data on, deaths under the Mental Health Act. Our research shows that people detained under the Mental Health Act have the highest mortality rate of those in custody, yet gaps in data and differences in their investigation processes raise questions about whether learning from these deaths are on an equal footing with deaths in other settings. 

We are also responding to the prison capacity crisis which has seen diminished access to purposeful activity, time out of cell, and key work – all of which we know are important for improving mental stability and rehabilitation and hence pivotal for preventing self-inflicted deaths. We will continue to provide advice and recommendations to Ministers and operational leaders to address these capacity challenges with a focus on these key protective factors in order to help reduce deaths in custody.

Our workplan also builds on the key strategic recommendations of the Angiolini review into deaths and serious incidents in police custody. This includes working with policing stakeholders to improve support for vulnerable individuals following release from police custody and gathering and examining data to better understand issues of disproportionality in police custody deaths.

We will also be focusing on improvements to the operation of key safeguards in the immigration detention estate, in particular Rules 34 and 35, to improve the protective mechanisms for those who are most vulnerable. Two self-inflicted deaths at Immigration Removal Centres over the past year demonstrate the urgency with which weaknesses in the system must be identified and addressed.

Lynn Emslie, IAPDC Chair, says:

“I am very pleased to be publishing our workplan which outlines  ambitious workstreams  to help ensure the prevention of deaths remains a priority for those responsible for the care of people in custody. Bereaved families and people with lived experience remain at the heart of what we do, and we will continue to engage with them to help inform and guide our work. I, along with my Panel colleagues, look forward to working across government and across sectors to drive forward this work.”

You can read the full workplan here.