Much of the IAPDC’s work is cross-cutting and relevant to more than one custodial sector.
Koestler Arts
Promoting the use of community sentences with treatment requirements
The IAPDC and Magistrates Association published a joint report on effective community sentences and the role treatment requirements can play in preventing deaths in custody in June 2019. The report is based on a survey undertaken by the IAPDC and Magistrates Association which collected the views of a small, selected group of magistrates on sentencing powers. The survey also looked at practice in relation to offenders with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and other needs, with a particular focus on community sentences as an alternative to custody, where appropriate.
Learning from bereaved families
Following the publication of the Angiolini Review into Deaths and Serious Incidents in Police Custody, the IAPDC submitted a paper to the Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody on improving performance and accountability. The paper represents the IAPDC’s initial thinking on how learning from bereaved families can best be drawn upon to improve the ability of the state to respond to the recommendations it receives after a death in custody or detention.
Read the paper: Achieving accountability and embedding recommendations (February 2019)
Learning lessons from deaths
Following the publication of the Angiolini Review into Deaths and Serious Incidents in Police Custody, the IAPDC submitted a paper to the Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody to support and encourage effective learning after a death in custody.
Read the paper: Embedding recommendations to prevent deaths in custody (October 2018)
Family Liaison Principles
The IAPDC published family liaison common standards and principles, which were written in partnership with a range of custodial organisations, investigatory bodies and the Department of Health. The standards are being communicated to practitioners in each of the organisations and will be incorporated into existing policies and information leaflets in due course. This work is the culmination of feedback the IAPDC received at family listening days, at which bereaved families highlighted the importance of accurate information about the death of a family member as well as involvement and information from any investigation as it develops. The standards were endorsed by the Ministerial Board on Death in Custody in 2013. Organisations have been asked to outline how they intend to implement these standards and the IAPDC will be collating examples of best practice for publication in due course, which it hopes will underpin the delivery of high quality family liaison.
Go to Family liaison principles page
Safer restraint
The Common Principles on the Safer Use of Restraint, published in 2013, were developed in conjunction with agencies representing Immigration, prisons, health, youth justice, police and the Restraint Advisory Board, and were further amended in consultation with the CQC, Department of Health, Institute of Psychiatry and Royal College of Nursing in August 2012 to ensure that they were also relevant to mental health settings.
Mendas Review: The impact of Coroners’ Rule 43 Reports on Organisational Learning
The IAPDC commissioned Mendas to:
- identify the action that has been taken by the individual custodial sector in response to (Coroner) Rule 43 reports; and
- determine the impact Rule 43 reports are having in terms of sharing, learning and contributing to the prevention of future deaths.
Information sharing
In July 2011, the information sharing statement reminding custodial staff of the need to share information on a detainee’s risk of self-harm / suicide was developed by the IAPDC. Board members endorsed the statement as a sensible way of ensuring information sharing at the Ministerial Board in October 2011.
Go to Information Sharing page
Article 2-compliant investigations
- IAPDC analysis of Serious Untoward Incident Reports
- IAPDC workstream paper on Article 2-compliant investigations
- Letter to Secretary of State for Justice – investigation of deaths in custody
- Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody: Report on Article 2-compliant investigation of deaths in custody (January 2009)
2014 & 2012 IAPDC Conference
Letter to Chief Medical Officer – public health in detention (July 2024)
Letter to Chief Secretary to the Treasury – Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (August 2021)
Response from Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Minister – Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (March 2021)
Response from Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Immigration Compliance and Courts – Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (October 2020)
Letter to Policing Minister – Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (August 2020)
Response from Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Justice – community sentences (July 2019)
Letter to Justice Secretary – community sentences (June 2019)
UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary, or arbitrary executions call for input on deaths in custody (March 2023)
Justice Select Committee inquiry on ‘the future of legal aid’ (October 2020)
Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry on ‘black people, racism and human rights’ (September 2020)
Justice Select Committee inquiry on ‘the Coroner Service’ (September 2020)
The Independent Human Rights Act Review (September 2020)
Centre for Mental Health’s review to guide the future of prison mental health care in England (September 2020)
Strengthening the scrutiny bodies through legislation (August 2020)