Features / police
State of policing
Avon & Somerset Police received a lot of criticism in 2024. They were criticised for how they handled the far-right protests protests in the summer and were seen by some as not doing enough to tackle the institutional racism chief constable Sarah Crew had said was a problem the year before. It is unlikely these criticisms will go away in 2025. Instead, there will be many more challenges – old and new – for the police force to contend with.
Deaths in custody
A new challenge the police force may soon have to grapple with is the introduction of a national oversight mechanism into deaths in police custody. In October 2024 Carla Denyer, MP for Bristol Central, introduced a private members’ bill in the House of Commons. The State-related Deaths (National Oversight Mechanism) Bill would allow for more scrutiny on state-related deaths. State-related deaths include deaths in prison and police custody as well as those in mental health facilities and following public disasters.
is needed now More than ever
According to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), between 2023 and 24 there were three apparent suicides following police custody and four deaths following police contact at Avon & Somerset Police. Across the UK there were 68 apparent suicides following police custody and 60 deaths following police contact.
Of the deaths following police contact, eight occurred after the police had used force against them. For deaths following police contact, IOPC figures only take into account deaths which have subsequently been placed under investigation. Other organisations, such as INQUEST – a national charity which provides support to bereaved families following deaths of loved ones in prison and police custody – count deaths in their statistics regardless of what happened before or after the death.
The State-related Deaths (National Oversight Mechanism) Bill would allow for more scrutiny on state-related deaths – photo: Karen Johnson
According to INQUEST, there have been 1,910 deaths in police custody or following contact with the police in England and Wales since 1990. In that time, 12 police officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter.
Only one has been convicted.
When an investigation is carried out into a state-related death, it will often be followed by reports, reviews and recommendations. Through their ‘No More Deaths’ campaign, INQUEST called for there to be a national oversight mechanism; an independent public body which would be responsible for collating recommendations and following up on them.
INQUEST’s campaign is what led Denyer to present her private members’ bill. In October, the Green MP explained that she backed the bill because of a “shocking story” she heard about Alexandra, “a young woman in my constituency (who) died after public services repeatedly failed her”. Alexandra’s mother got in touch with Denyer to tell her about INQUEST’s campaign.
Denyer said: “When someone dies after contact with the state, hundreds of vital recommendations are made following inquests and inquiries. But unbelievably, it is not anyone’s job to collate these recommendations, analyse them for patterns and make sure they get acted on.
“Public and private bodies have a duty to keep us safe from harm and protect our lives, but every year hundreds of people die preventable state related deaths. The lack of any mechanism for learning from past tragedies is surely a big part of this. Let’s fix this.”
Alexandra was a 23-year-old transgender woman who took her own life in 2019 after being detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act. Following her death, Alexandra’s parents and INQUEST raised concerns about the quality of care she had received from her GP and Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust in the months leading up to her death.
Although the impetus for Denyer’s bill came from Alexandra’s case, which involved a mental health facility, the State-related Deaths (National Oversight Mechanism) Bill would also have implications for police forces across the country. It would mean that a national oversight mechanism is set up to ensure the police follow recommendations made during inquests, public inquiries, investigations and official reviews, and hold them accountable if they do not.
It would therefore require Avon & Somerset Police, for example, to ensure it was continuing to follow lessons learned in 2018 after an IOPC investigation found police misconduct contributed to the death of a man in police custody in Somerset.
The State-related Deaths (National Oversight Mechanism) bill will have a second reading on January 17. If it is unopposed, it will continue through the legislative process and ultimately become law.
Stop and Search
While interacting with a national oversight mechanism may be a new challenge for Avon & Somerset Police to contend with, the issue of institutional racism is one they know well. In 2023, chief constable Sarah Crew declared that her force was “institutionally racist”. This followed a 2022 independent review, chaired by Desmond Brown, on “identifying disproportionality” within the organisation.
In particular, Avon & Somerset Police have been repeatedly called out by campaigners, local media and young people for racial disparities in stop and searches.
In 2024, the Bristol Cable launched a petition to get Avon & Somerset Police to commit to no longer using Section 60 powers – which permit the police to stop and search people without suspicion they have committed a crime – in part due to concerns about racial disproportionality.
Meanwhile, in 2023, Bristol Copwatch, an independent police monitoring organisation, raised concerns about the introduction of Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SRVOs), which provide police with discretionary power to stop and search people without reasonable suspicion. Bristol Copwatch said they expected SRVOs to lead to an “increase in racist profiling and disproportionate ‘intelligence’ driven stops”.
In 2022 Desmond Brown chaired a review, commissioned by the Avon & Somerset Local Crime Justice Board called ‘Identifying Disproportionality in the Avon and Somerset Criminal Justice System’ – photo: Mia Vines Booth
In response to concerns about racial disparities in stop and search, Avon and Somerset Police reached out to Bristol24/7 to discuss ‘deep dive’ analysis they had done into their stop and search data
They revealed that, between January 2017 and November 2023, people who identified as Black Caribbean were 6.21 times more likely to be stopped than white people while people who identified as Black African were 3.63 times more likely.
Additionally, officers were 25 times more likely to conduct an exposing intimate parts (EIP) search – otherwise known as ‘strip search’ – of Black adults and children than white people.
Of the 35 children, 15 years old or younger, that were EIP searched between 2017-2023, 17 were Black – over 50 per cent.
Although police strip searches of children made national headlines in 2020 when it was revealed a 15-year-old Black girl – ‘Child Q’ – had been EIP searched at a school in London, Avon & Somerset Police have not EIP searched any under-18 girls since 2019.
Why would anyone ever need to strip search a child?
All EIP searches of children in 2024 and 2023 were for suspected drug offences.
In 2022, 80 per cent were for drugs and 20 per cent were for suspected knife offences.
Chief inspector Vicks Hayward-Melen, pictured here at a press conference earlier this year, is the force lead for stop and search – photo: Avon & Somerset Police
Chief inspector Vicks Hayward-Melen, who is also the force’s lead on stop and search, explained: “What we’re finding a lot of the time, is children who are being exploited by others… there will be a person with the phone, there will be the person with the cash and then the person with the thing that will actually get you into serious trouble will probably be the youngest person, and they look to get them to conceal it in underwear. The only way we can search for that is with an EIP search.”
When asked by Bristol24/7 why racial disparities exist in EIP searches, Hayward- Melen said: “That is the million-dollar question, and I am very mindful that I sit here with white privilege trying to answer a question when I don’t have lived experience around it. I know there will be many readers of your article who will have views on why that is.
The challenge that we have is tangibly making that link. Because if we come out and say it is happening because of X, we need to be able to demonstrate that and evidence that.”
Hayward-Melen added: “We have some working hypotheses, including unconscious bias, conscious bias, and institutional racism. However, we cannot conclusively attribute this disproportionality to any one factor without further analysis.”
But if the police are unaware of the root cause of the disproportionality, won’t the disproportionality keep occurring?
“I think that time (when the disproportionality stops) will come at some point for policing wider…this isn’t just an Avon & Somerset thing,” Hayward-Melen said. “I think once we get to the point of Baroness Casey’s four tests and we no longer meet them, that’s what our chief has said, if we’re no longer meeting Baroness Casey’s four tests, that’s our measure of whether we’re not institutionally racist anymore.
All EIP searches of children in 2024 were for suspected drug offences
The four tests Baroness Casey revealed in her 2023 review of the Metropolitan Police Service were:
- Clearly not everyone in the Met is racist, but there are racists and people with racist attitudes within the organisation
- Black and ethnic minority officers and staff experience racism at work and it is routinely ignored, dismissed, or not spoken about. Many do not think it is worth reporting
- Racism and racial bias are reinforced within Met systems
- The Met under-protects and over-polices Black Londoners
Hayward-Melen continued: “I guess my thinking would be, if we’re starting to move away based on Casey’s tests, but young Black boys are still feeling and looking and feeling like they’re being targeted, then we need to look at other more individual-based aspects.”
During her conversation with Bristol24/7, Hayward-Melen mentioned a recent film called Unjust Stop the police had created with Creative Power Town, a community interest company based in St Paul’s. The film informs young people about what rights they have when they’re stopped by the police and Hayward-Melen pointed to it as an example of the work Avon & Somerset Police are doing to increase confidence in the police among Black communities.
Hayward-Melen also pointed to work the force is doing to reduce trauma for children who have experienced EIP searches: an undergraduate student on placement from the University of Bristol will work with her to look at possible solutions; and Avon & Somerset Police’s newly launched ‘Chance to Change’ deferred prosecution model will hopefully help divert young offenders away from the criminal justice system.
Still, it is clear there is a lot more left to do to fully contend with the issue of institutional racism in policing in 2025 and uphold Avon & Somerset Police’s stated vision of providing “outstanding policing for everyone”.
This article is taken from the January/February 2025 Bristol24/7 magazine
Main photo: Oli Woodward
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