Juvenile detention in Police cells (FOI)

Request

How many children have been held in police cells over the last three years?

Could you list the age and gender of each child, the reason they were put in the cells and how long they were there for.

Response

The treatment of those held in custody for an offence is governed by:

The Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Codes of practice)(Jersey) Order 2004 (PPACE)

The provision that relates to juveniles in police cells is shown below.

CODE C:

A Code of Practice for the Detention, Treatment and Questioning of Persons by Police officers

8 Conditions of Detention

8.8 A juvenile shall not be placed in a police cell unless no other secure accommodation is available and the custody officer considers that it is not practicable to supervise the juvenile if he or she is not placed in a cell or the custody officer considers that a cell provides more comfortable accommodation than other secure accommodation in the police station. A juvenile may not be placed in a cell with a detained adult.

Jersey law dictates that a juvenile is a person under the age of 18. If secure detention is required, a juvenile will always be detained in a secure room, usually an interview room whilst awaiting an appropriate adult and whilst waiting to be interviewed. If the juvenile continues to be or becomes violent or damages the room or property in the room, or it is considered to be in the best interests of the child, the option of placing the juvenile in a cell will be considered.

If a juvenile is required to remain in custody overnight, secure accommodation is provided by the States of Jersey via the Children’s Service. Only if this alternative accommodation is unavailable or it is deemed unsuitable, will a juvenile be detained in a cell overnight. Any juvenile detained in custody will always be accompanied by an appropriate adult or an escorting officer and when placed in a cell is under constant monitoring by a cell guard.

The States of Jersey Police record all instances when a juvenile has been placed in a cell with the full rational recorded on the individuals custody record, however, no separate, searchable record is made to reflect the total numbers placed in a cell.

To ascertain how many of those 425 juveniles were placed in a cell over the time period requested, would require a physical check of each individual custody record.

This would take in excess of the time limit allowed for producing freedom of information request responses.

The table below shows the total number and ages of juveniles detained by the States of Jersey Police over the past three years, not those detained in a cell. Those detained other than for an offence, may have required a place of safety.  

The gender of those juveniles held in custody is shown below:

Exemption applied

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.