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Sunday, 21 February 2010

Deaths in Custody - Statistics


Inspired by my visit to Brixton Police Station, I got to wondering about a league table with regard to deaths in custody.

So I have made around 30 Freedom of information requests (Using www.whatdotheyknow.com ) to the police forces in England and asked them to provide the following information:

1) How many deaths in custody have occurred in the last 5 years?

2) Which station was responsible for each person who died? (Eg. Bromley: X deaths. Brixton: Y deaths. Etc.)

3) How many members of the public are served by the police stations where deaths occurred?


I am hoping that by dividing the number of people a station is responsible by the number of deaths in custody, I will be able to give each one a rating. This will mean that I can target those with unusually high ratings for campaigns.

Armed with this information, residents who live in the catchment area of the stations in question can ask their MP's to investigate on their behalf using www.theyworkforyou.com

You can tell that I am inspired by the accountability that is standard in the education system and I am even trying to work out how I can do a colour coded map of England to show these results.

I would like to point out that I understand that due to the nature of the job, there are likely to be deaths that are not suspicious. However, I do await the data with interest to see if my suspicions are justified.


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