Prisons

Custody visitors are volunteers who make unannounced visits to police custody blocks to check on the welfare of detainees. However, there is a fundamental power imbalance between the police and these visitors. This timely book offers detailed proposals for radically reforming custody visiting to make it an effective regulator of police behaviour.

Providing a comprehensive account of prison populations worldwide, this new work links prison statistics from the last 15 years with considerations of how prisons and prison populations are managed. It is a major contribution to the knowledge of those currently debating prisons and the use of imprisonment.

This engaging book presents the shocking truth about the lives and deaths of children in custody. Drawing on human rights legislation, it outlines the harsh realities of penal child custody. The issues are explored through the lens of protection, not punishment, and the author finds there can be only one conclusion: child prisons must close.