Keep The Coffee Coming
July 29, 2007 by inspectorgadget
We do not let prisoners smoke in the custody area for two reasons.
Firstly, we retain control of what happens i.e. we decide when to take them to the exercise yard for a smoke and secondly, it is dangerous to have any combustables in a cell.
Now it’s also illegal due to the new legisaltion.
A Chief Inspector from another force explained on TV the other day that prisoners at his police station will be given Nicotine Patches by the Custody Staff. You, the hard working, honest and decent citizen will pay for this.
A Civil Rights lawer then appeared, and claimed that this would make any interview evidence unsafe, because an addicted prisoner would say anything to get out and have a smoke. Clearly something they are working on to use as a defence tactic in Court.
They make it sound like committing crime isn’t a life choice. Why on earth do we keep giving Victim Status to criminals? You can’t have a ciggie when some drunken lout has just smashed your face in for no reason either.
Are the police going to give victims a free Nicotine Patch?
This is the way it went when I was a Custody Sergeant: you calm down, you treat the staff with some respect and you prove that you are safe to handle, and you might (if we have time) get to the yard for a smoke. If you want a smoke before or during interview, if you follow the rules above, I will find someone to get you out for a smoke. If you have your own smokes…. fine. If not, your purchase some from us. I was not rude, I was not aggressive. These were the rules and they worked.
I learned this from more experienced Custody Sergeants.
Being in custody is not supposed to be like checking in to the VIP lounge at Heathrow Airport. It should be a brisk, businesslike and not altogether pleasant experience.
First!
Just like I use to be! However since our force went No Smoking a few years ago in the cells, they don’t bother asking any more. The briefs don’t even get in my custody. They stay outside and if they want to make reps, it’s apart and away from their ‘client’……businesslike
regards,
dalmations
Fortunately for the taxpayer, postcode prescribing for anti-cancer drugs, non-existent pay rises for NHS nurses, wards closing left, right and centre, staff redundancies and fewer jobs for all those expensive doctors have all meant that there is plenty of money left in the NHS coffers to fund all these nicotine patches now.
Thank goodness for that!
But its all worthwhile when they’re convicted (again) and get a £50 fine for assaulting
someone.
Isn’t it.
As a PC who is ogten in custody as a gaoler it also REALLY gets to me that in a 12 hour shift I can be so run of my feet that I don’t get any food yet I’m supposed to ensure the “detainee’s” get theirs.
Coupled with bloody lay visitors who moan “Why hasn’t cell 2 had a hot meal yet?”, “why aren’t there enough blankets?” who give you a blank look and tell you it’s not good enough when you point out the mand who ahsn’t been fed has been ripping his paper suit up and eating his own facaes and has just been moved to another cell or that you haven’t had time to go to the toilet let alone sort out blankets.
Just needed to get that off my chest……
Where - in all this - is the leadership from the top? The answer is “they” are too busy looking out for their career progressions/knighhoods etc.
I’ve always read in the Blackstones books that there has never been any case law on refusal of cigarettes in custody being oppressive conduct by us, that no-one has tried that in court. I mean, if they did, you could also challenge what a defendant says in court as the bench/Judge aren’t going to let him smoke in the dock. How ridiculous would that sound?
I don’t doubt that the occasional solicitor tries it on, but they’re only saying it to look good to their client, in the same way as solicitors for rapists and murderers occasionally say on their first court appearance ‘My client has instructed me to ask for bail’. They’re more chance of winning the lottery without a ticket. It’s just a shame that a generally professional body of people has to make themselves look stupid for the sake of keeping a bit of repeat business.
Lost for words, yet again. (shakes head in bewilderment) the worlds gone mad.
The issue of prisoners having a smoke in custody has always been one of my pet hates. I’ve never heard of the “if they haven’t got any, they buy them from us” method IG. If they haven’t got any, they don’t get any in my book.
I used to allow it on two provisos. a) they have shown the regulation amount of respect to deserve one and b) the Gaoler was happy to supervise it. (this was usually if the gaoler was a smoker too, and would be a welcome 5 minutes away from the madness)
Now its actually against the law, rather than solicitors worrying about what their damn client is gonna say in interview, they should search their black hearts to work out why they are there (again) in the first place. If being nicked is an occupational hazard for these slimeballs, then they should learn that not having a cigarette is a consequence too….
Oh I just looked, can’t find the bit in PACE that says they have to smoke! So the defence is pi**ing in the wind with that one!
If we can lock them in a room for 24 hours for as little as saying f**k a couple of times, i’m sure we can make them go withoout ciggies while they’re in there!
They know the answer - don’t get arrested.
p.s. off topic but the government are trying to rip us off again and effectively give us a pay cut:
http://www.polfed.org/
bastards
When our unit went no smoking I was not sure, being allowed out for a smoke was useful as a reward when they calmed down and behaved in a reasonable manner. Since we stopped smoking hardly anyone uses the yard and there is less demand on the staff taking them to and fro. On the other hand we have lost one of our ‘bargaining tools’.
It’s nearly a month since the ban came into effect in our force. Prisoners are not even allowed a fag in the yard. Our force policy is that nicotine replacement therapy will only be given if the FME deems it necessary, or if the prisoner supplies their own.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked “Any chance of a fag guv?” I give an honest answer - “No chance at all”
We also have those who come into custody after 10pm and demand food. When asked what they’ve done during the day to secure a meal, they look blankly at you and then get narked when they are told “If you can’t be bothered to cook for yourself, why should I do it?”
Then there are those that demand a nurse or doctor because they are suffering from withdrawal and they start moaning about how long it’s taking for the medic to arrive. The fact that they couldn’t even go private and get seen within 90 minutes, as they are in custody, doesn’t seem to impress them. Again, when asked if they have been to their own GP for help, the response is a vacant look - as if the concept of doing something to help themselves is completely alien.
Don’t even get me started on Eastern European shoplifters and Far Eastern cannabis cultivators!!
Ihave been shanghaied into our custody suite this weekend because of sickness and I quite enjoy the change from the beat for a few days. The shift is over before you know it and there is always the chance to practice your OST on the nippy customers
My answer is and always will be “I’m not taking you out for a cigarette its against my religion” No one can come back to that one because they are then questioning my religious beliefs if they try!!
If I have to put up with stench of their unwashed clothes and bodies when I’m gaoler then there is no way in hell that I am going to put myself out for someone who has been absive to “ease their calm” by taking them out for a fag. As the guv said, its not supposed to be a pleasant experience anyway.
I like working in custody and would rather do a set of nights for it, its always busy, over before you know it and you’re always gonna get someone who wants to play. Sometimes they nearly win… sometimes..
simple answer for the scum bags out there. Don’t commit crime then you don’t get arrested and there you don’t go to a custody centre and then you can smoke until their hearts are content. However if you do commit crime and get arrested, tough shit deal with it.
What really, really gets my goat is how we keep being told that having a “chaotic lifestyle” is an excuse for most things. A kind of victim status.
Those who have mental health issues, i can understand. But those who are chaotic because they choose to do nothing but addle their brains with drink/drugs. They are not victims.
Minty, who is it that has come up with the term ‘chaotic lifestyle’. It is not the people that we deal with most don’t know their a*** from their elbow. It is the vast stated funded(taxpayer) specialist teams who have a vested interested in maintaining a ‘chaotic lifestyle’ for numerous people.
Stan, I make you right there… its like the ones who say they are suicidal… we treat them like they are an utter danger to themselves and everyone around them, but if they WERE suicidal, they’d be dead now, and not putting the frighteners on Custody staff.
When they say they are siucidal, I say, well why have you waited for this precise moment on your arrest to consider suicide again?
Your right about medical care and food, they demand it now, when they haven’t bothered for the previous part of the day to achieve that one simple task of self preservation. and we pander to them.
aaaaarrrgggghhhhh and can feel the blood rising….
did I tell you I don’t do custody anymore?
Bob, too flaming true. Not too long ago I was infromed by someones social worker that he had a choatic lifestyle but was doing really well because he hadn’t got pissed and beaten his wife OR landed in court recently. She went onto to say, if he was interviewed then the stress could cause a relapse. I did toy with the idea of pointing out that the very fact that we were intending to interview him suggested that maybe he wasn’t being that good after all… i saved my breath. She even went as far as to suggest that if he beat his wife up because of the stress it’d be MY fault.
Just typical. How about taking a bit of responsibilty for ones life and actions. Or is that asking a bit too much?
Withdrawal symptoms if they can’t have a fag, withdrawal symptons if they can’t be out at liberty making some poor sod’s life a misery. Human rights, its all on their side, all the time. Another excuse to try to get them even more victim status. B & B on the queen is a luxury they should appreciate, especially the way their every right is catered for. The vast majority seem to like it so much they just keep on coming back.
I’ve them kick off when they arrive and all the bravado statements that come with it. Not often, granted. They demand to be treated with some respect even they treat everyone else with utter contempt. The treat life just the same way, wanting it all and giving nothing. When you’re in our house you live by our rules, at least it applies some of the time.
[...] Keep The Coffee Coming We do not let prisoners smoke in the custody area for two reasons. Firstly, we retain control of what happens i.e. we […] [...]
A couple of mentions of social workers in the comments reminded me of a joke: Two social workers walking down the street come across a man lying in the gutter. He’s been beaten senseless, lying in a pool of blood, his wallet and watch have been stolen. One says to the other; “Quick, we must help whoever did this!” .
Twice this week social services have asked me for police assistance in doing their bits and bats. Both times they asked me to send “A police woman in case there’s any children”. I verbally tore their heads off each time, as they’re the first ones to tell us how sexist, racist, fascist, anythingist we the police are when actually we’re one of the most accepting, unbiased and culturally aware organisations in the world. If you want to find sexism, bias and judgementalism etc, send your undercover journalists to a building site, a factory, a farm, or a social services department!
Nice one feathers. Bang on.
Still, at the back of my mind, is a quote from a mate.
“There are only two types who find themselves in the Custody ‘Suite’ (ahem)
“
the buggers that’ve done it, and the buggers who got away with it
What is it with people in custody feeling the need to piss and deficate all over the very same cell they are sleeping in? And its not even mental health that do that (ok it is occasionally but not as often)
Whats that?? Oh NO!!! It would appear that their jacket/coat/trousers that were placed on the floor outside their cell appears to have soaked up all the piss.
Must make a mental note to stop using criminals clothes as stench barriers on the bottom of the cell door…..
As a custody Sgt my cells are filled with the ‘Sad, the Bad and the Mad’.
There are many Sad case criminals who get booked in, born into poverty, lacking parental direction they end up on crack and heroin as an escape and spiral down to DVT and stealing meat. Believe it or not I have some sympathy for these people.
The Mad, well there are bloomin loads of these, thanks to over use of amphet and cannabis mental illness and psychosis is common. Some get sectioned, some jump off bridges after hearing voices.
The Bad, seem to be fewer of these about than when I began (20yrs ago), more wife beaters though, fewer proper burglars and car thieves, fewer drink drivers, more cunning and evil Eastern European thieves.
The real Bad ones in my custody area are the solicitors and legal reps, they employ wicked practices on both their clients and us. Advising clients to plead not guilty and no reply for greater financial gain, they are like the buzzards feed from a corpse.
Sometimes I can’t help thinking that civil rights lawyers, along with nasty violent chain smoking chavs, should all be drop kicked into the English Channel and left there.
An idea? From a Chief Inspector?
Must be promotion time again.
I must admit i enjoyed the look on our “customers” faces when the smoking ban came in at our custody units, you would have thought they were going to die.
Anyone given a thought about the effects on the TACT prisoners? 28 Days without a fag! Oh what a shame,
We should make a claim for getting them off of smoking.
Sorry to repeat the obvious, but this is another argument for local control of police forces. Professional bleeding hearts are more likely to be impressed by this nicotine patches policy than more robust local electorates, who will wonder why they should foot the bill.
It’s a joke.
I saw an episode of Street Wars (I think) where a drunk squaddie (he looked about 17) walked into McDonalds sucking on a child’s dummy. One of the customers obviously gave him a double take so drunken lad starts shouting at him, goes up and buys his food and on the way out gave the poor customer a battering around the head. The drunken bloke said he was sucking on the dummy in a bid to get off the fags (love to see his army mates reaction to that). When he got taken away to the station booked in a put in a cell the last thing you saw was him being given a tab, having it lit by the DO and then having the door closed. I always thought all cells were non smoking mainly to avoid the twats in there setting fire to the furnishings. I’m always greatful I don’t do that job when I read about where people choose to secrete a lighter
Just come off a Tier 3 interview course and we spent a solid 30 mins debating the smoking in custody thing. The consensus was that it would be a pity if damning evidence obtained by good questioning was chucked out on an application that it was obtained unfairly or by oppression on the basis that the suspect had been denied a smoke.
It is really is just a matter of time before some legal aid chancer tries to run the “client withdrawing” application on an interview that went our way.
Our lecturer (who is apparently pretty well regarded as an expert witness on interviewing) gave the opinion that refusing smokes could be construed as torture. He didn’t mean the real “voltage to the testes” type of torture but rather that “argued in the Court of Appeal” sort of torture that gets bad people off.
I am a former 20 a day man. These days I am on the gum at work. I have been known to invest the odd piece of gum in a suspect. That’s what detectives incidentals were all about back in the day. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t. I do like it when someone drops their defences for a shot of nicotine and in some small corner of their consciousness they begin to see me as a human who is a bit on their side. Mwhahahah WRONG but I will take any advantage I can get.