Research & Reports

4WardEver UK

Custody visits by members of the public failing to hold police to account

Woman in a cellsource: The Conversation
published: 30 April 2018

Custody in police stations is a very locked-down affair. People who have been arrested and are detained spend most of the time isolated in their cells. Custody visitors, the only outsiders who get to see the detainees, are neither respected by the police nor trusted by the detainees.

“My recent research has revealed serious problems in the system of monitoring police custody, now known as the Independent Custody Visiting Scheme. This scheme, run locally by Police and Crime Commissioners, enables members of the public to make random, unannounced visits to check on the welfare of the detainees in police custody” [says author, John Kendall].

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4WardEver UK

Capital punishment should be a thing of the past

Image Credit Naypong at www.FreeDigitalPhotos.netsource: Reflector Online
published: 11 April 2018

Gone are the days when people were publicly hanged for their crimes, but we don’t live in a better society. Just because criminals’ deaths aren’t on full display doesn’t mean they are no longer being slaughtered for something they probably did, but may have not done.

Since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, about 1,500 people have been executed, according to an article from CNN. The Death Penalty Information Center notes that there are over 2,800 people currently on death row, which is far too many. That number should be zero.

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4WardEver UK

Antisemitic incidents [recorded] in UK at an all-time high

Religion Jewishsource: Guardian Society
published: 1 February 2018

There were 1,382 antisemitic incidents recorded nationwide in 2017 by the Community Security Trust. This was the highest tally that the trust, a charity that monitors antisemitism, has registered for a calendar year since it began gathering such data in 1984.

The figure rose by 3%, compared with a total, in 2016, of 1,346 incidents – a tally that itself was a record annual total.

There was no obvious single cause behind the trend, the trust said.

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