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Book review: Deadly silence: Black deaths in custody

01 January 1991

Book review: Deadly silence: Black deaths in custody
artdoc October=1991

Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS,
pp75, ¼4.

This disturbing publication from the Institute of Race Relations
investigates nearly forty cases of black deaths in custody. The
pamphlet is divided into three sections on `Death and the
police', `Death in prison' and `Death in hospital custody'. The
policing section looks in some detail at deaths that occur while
on patrol and raids on the home; deaths on arrest and while at
the police station. The Prison section covers: misdiagnosis;
inadequate treatment; aggravated suicides and deaths following
violent treatment. Chapter 4 is a roll call of 75 black deaths
that have occurred in custody since 1969. The overwhelming
evidence presented in this book demonstrates that black people
suffer unequal, and sometimes fatal, treatment at every stage of
the Criminal Justice system. In the final chapter 14
recommendations are made to redress this imbalance by protecting
the rights of black people in custody and, in the case of a
death, ensuring that custodians are held to account.

Statewatch no 4 September/October 1991