Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

Combat stress can be a factor in subsequent offending, what can we do for veterans who come into our custody?

Of the many questions our custody sergeants ask detainees when they’re brought into our custody blocks, the ‘have you ever been a member of the armed forces?’ stands out as one of the stranger.

We cover medical background, religious needs, even dietary requirements, but the question about military service is the one that usually gets the most quizzical response from the person stood before the desk.

The reason we ask is that sadly from time to time we do get prisoners who come into custody for reasons connected directly or indirectly to their time spent serving the country.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in particular may appear to be a factor in their offending and whilst it can’t excuse criminal activity, it does at the very least provide some context for understanding why a someone may be committing offences.

It’s in situations where PTSD offers some context for an offence that we look to intervene and address the root cause in an attempt to prevent future offending.

Charities such as Combat Stress can be contacted and referrals made so that there’s some support available when it appears that a person’s behaviour may have been influenced by PTSD.

This isn’t only beneficial to the prisoner but also to surrounding family who will sometimes refer in their statements to problems experienced following a tour or discharge from the services.

It’s a difficult situation as again, trauma related to combat stress can’t negate responsibility for offending or the damage caused to the victims of crime.

At the same time, having experiences of war few outside the military could ever understand is invariably going to leave mental scars with long lasting consequences.

Police action may address the short term problems associated when veterans are unfortunate enough to fall through the cracks, working with partner agencies and charities though is how we seek to get them back on their feet.

It makes sense for the prisoners, it makes sense for victims too.

I’ll be watching you…

Ariel Castro’s suicide in his prison cell highlighted the difficulties of safeguarding the welfare of detainees.

Only weeks after his sentencing to life imprisonment for holding women captive at his house in Ohio, Ariel Castro was able to hang himself whilst unattended in his cell.

No matter what the allegation or conviction, deaths of people in custody are always a tragedy and deeply regrettable as such.

When a person is brought into police custody in England & Wales, the first thing that the sergeant will do is to conduct a risk assessment with the aim of establishing what steps might need to be taken to manage any vulnerabilities.

A series of medical questions are asked to identify any conditions or medication that might need to be addressed whilst a person is detained.

Their mental welfare will likewise be carefully considered, the circumstances of the arrest, offence, and previous indicators suggesting self harm (marks on wrists, warning markers on their record etc) all contribute to a the risk assessment.

With the information collected, the sergeant then has to make a decision about how best to manage the prisoner’s welfare.

If medical conditions have been raised as an issue, it might be that they’ll need to be seen by a nurse or doctor prior.

When self harming presents itself as a possibility, the sergeant has to choose the appropriate level of observations under which to keep the prisoner for the duration of their stay.

There are four incremental levels that apply as set out in the beefy Safer Detention guidelines, they are –

• Level one (General observation) –  The prisoner will be visited once an hour
• Level two (Intermittent observations) – Once every half an hour the prisoner will be visited and roused
• Level three (Constant observations) – The prisoner is visited as above but also watched at all times e.g. via CCTV
• Level four (Close proximity observation) – Someone will sit with the prisoner at all times and personally supervise them

Because risk assessment is an ongoing process, risk levels can vary as a person’s detention continues with their demeanour improving or worsening.

Cell watches are not the most glamorous part of the job and will either be conducted by custody staff or police officers, depending on staffing.

They too can be very difficult to manage, I’ve spent some shifts sat in cells with prisoners physically holding their arms and reassuring them to prevent them harming themselves by punching out at the walls.

Managing a high risk detainee is no enviable task and is as the case outside of custody, if someone if set upon harming themselves then it can be very challenging to prevent them doing so.

We take detainee welfare very seriously and whilst no cell can be truly suicide proof, we do all we can to ensure that the ‘death in custody’ is as rare an event as is possible.

I just can’t help believin’…

Hoax public safety warning purporting to be from the police are unhelpful to say the least…

If you follow crime prevention advice apparently ‘FROM MET POLICE’ that you’ve seen reposted on Facebook, you’re probably on the lookout for the following –

• Criminals leaping into the rear seat of your car as part of a gang initiation
• Serial killers using recordings of babies crying to lure people out of their houses in the night
• Fraudsters impersonating official ‘wallet inspectors’ operating at Games Workshops

Now as someone who often dishes out the crime prevention advice and working for a force that’s rather keen on educating the goodly public on how to avoid becoming victims, I’m generally quite in favour of giving a heads up when there’s something the public ought to know.

Take rogue callers or a localised rise in burglaries as examples, you’re likely to see a tweet from one of our official twitter feeds advising people to be vigilant and not leave pies to cool on windowsills.

This is sensible advice – it comes from a reliable source as officers like myself know from first hand experience that the issue we’re advising on ‘actually happened’.

Unfortunately not all of the advice that’ll come to you through the pipes of the internets ‘actually happened a few weeks ago’ as claimed.

Looking at a small selection of the many bogus warnings you’ll see floating around in Facebook posts, emails and blogs, you’ll quickly realise that unless advice is from an official source such as our own Facebook page, you should be incredulous about it at the very least.

Many of the warnings are variants of similar horror stories that have been circulating for years in various forms, they’re malicious and rather than serving to inform, they panic and mislead.

Hysteria aside, they also dilute the messages that we put out and distract attention from the information that members of the public would really benefit from having.

As such, unless the advice comes from an official source rather than ‘some I know who actually saw it’, it’s always a good idea to steer clear of it and not forward it on.

Rather than helping with public safety, by sharing none-sense about criminals using cranes to kidnap people and the like, you’re more likely to do the exact opposite.

P.S. From this article, the pictured example warning about people leaping into back seats at service stations apparently originated in Australia a few years ago and spread from there. It’s completed fictional. If you see it posted on your wall, feel free to post a link to this blog to set everyone right.