Background
• Over the past decade, overall prison populations have grown and deaths in custody increased.
• Violent or traumatic deaths were consistently found to involve allegations of neglect or abuse from
the custodians, systemic failures or institutional indifference (Coles and Shaw, 2006).
• 'Nothing to See Here' (Armstrong et al, 2020).
• 'Deaths in Prison: A National Scandal' (INQUEST, 2020)
Scoping review (Roulston et al., 2020) identified four themes:
• Transformative effect - association with cells and deaths, cleansing process for officers
• Time delays - to informing relatives or inquests into deaths in prison custody
• Conflicts of interest - care and control, unwillingness to investigate, affiliation of investigators
• Support - depersonalisation, closed world of custody and role of social workers/family liaison
03/23/2023