Stress-Testing Contingencies

About a decade ago, I was pottering about as the duty inspector in south Birmingham when a full-scale police mobilisation of public order units was ordered. This involves having to get together a sergeant and seven constables on to van, all of them ‘level two trained’ in public order tactics – riot police, to you […]

Let’s Do The Maths

Look back to when I joined the police are you’ll see that crime levels, measured either by police recorded crime or by the British Crime Survey, were much higher – but if you look at statistics on use of s136 of the Mental Health Act, the quality of them has not always been great, but […]

Attention to Detail

Last year, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published their Standards on the Mental Health of Adults in the Criminal Justice System. This involved NICE reviewing the best available evidence and practice around the contact that vulnerable adults have with the criminal justice system. Subsequently, NICE published what they call a ‘quality […]