INQUEST

1
INQUEST

• Corporate Killing and deaths in police or
  prison custody

2
What is INQUEST

•  deaths in Prison and at the hands of the police
•  providing advice to bereaved families
•  undertaking policy and research work
•  Monitors inquests, criminal investigations
• and prosecutions
•  work towards greater state and corporate
• accountability

3
Extent of the Problem

• Since 1990
•  1508 deaths in prison
•  712 police deaths (including

4
INQUESTs Interest in Corporate Killing

• Failure of the current law to deal with deaths
  resulting from gross organisational failures on
  the part of the police forces and prisons.
•  have been a pattern of restraint related deaths
  in custody
• where there have been serious concerns about
  failure to
• issue guidance and training on dangers or
  particular
• methods of restraint (e.g use of neck holds,
  CS gas, prone
• restraint)
•  pattern of self inflicted deaths in prison
  where there have
• been a failure to implement suicide prevention
  guidelines
• (e.g failure to remove cell bars)

5
Current legal position - Prisons

• Most prisons controlled by home office
• - not companies
• - in any case, crown bodies so cant be
  prosecuted as
• result of crown immunity
• Private prisons
• - run by companies, can be prosecuted
• - not crown bodies
• - would need to be able to prosecute director
  or
• senior manager of company that runs prison

6
Current Legal Position - Police forces

• - complicated legal status
• - not crown bodies, so no immunity
• - but not a company, so cant be prosecuted for
  
• manslaughter

7
What INQUEST Wants

• An offence that allows prisons and police forces
  to be prosecuted for causing deaths as a result
  of serious management failures.
• This would require
• - removal of crown immunity, so prisons can be
• prosecuted
• - clarifying status of police forces, so that
  they can be
• treated in law as an organisation that can be
• prosecuted for new offence

8
What INQUEST Wants

• Governments Position
• - appears to want to keep crown immunity
• - result in absurd position where family of
  person who
• died in a private prison would have different
  redress
• and accountability from person who died in
  ordinary
• prisons
• - not said anything about position of police
  police have
• so far lobbied successfully to ensure that a
  police
• force does not have an independent legal status
  that
• allows it to be prosecuted. Currently deflects
• responsibility upon either Chief Constable or
  police
• authority, when it should be the police force
  itself.