Police Powers and Citizens’ Rights

Layla Skinns is a Reader in Criminology in the Centre for Criminological Research, University of Sheffield, having formerly worked and studied at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge and the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, King’s College London. She has a longstanding interest in police and policing, in particular in how policing agents use their authority. A key focus of her research has been on police detention in England and Wales, but also in other parts of the anglophone world. In this setting, she is interested in police powers and their relationship with the law, police cultures and police discretion, and furthermore, how they impact on equality and state-citizen relations. She is also interested in how the public – particularly detainees – perceive the police, which links her research to discussions about police legitimacy and ‘good’ policing.

"Skinns provides a critical, thoughtful and thought provoking thematic analysis of how police power is exercised in the police station. The original comparative analysis, expertly synthesised, starkly juxtaposes the experience in each jurisdiction but essentially enables a richly nuanced understanding of the impact of neoliberalism and police culture. Indispensable for policing scholars."Dr Vicky Conway, School of Law & Government, Dublin City University"This excellent book is distinguished by its combination of empirical depth, comparative breadth and theoretical ambition. Layla Skinns confirms her reputation as the pre-eminent international researcher on highly significant political tensions between police powers and citizens’ rights in police detention."Professor David Dixon, School of Law, University of New South Wales"Layla Skinns’ wonderful book, based on detailed fieldwork, observations and interviews, is an important, sensitive and powerful analysis of patterns of detention in Australia, the US, Ireland and England. I found it rewarding, subtle and grounded in comparative analysis and socio-legal reasoning."Peter K. Manning, Elmer V.H. and Eileen M Brooks Chair in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University. "This book draws on a rich tradition of empirical and theoretically-informed research in criminal justice in common law jurisdictions. But it breaks new ground in being based on empirical studies of police custody in four of these comparable jurisdictions. Not only are there few other recent comparative studies of police custody, but this book also relates this aspect of policing to neo-liberalism – the dominating political practice of the early 21st Century. But why ‘police powers and citizens rights’, and not ‘police powers and suspects rights’? The point is that Layla Skinns rightly wants to reclaim ‘suspects’ as ‘citizens’, in a challenge to the neoliberal ‘othering’ of suspects and convicted people that reduces all marginalised groups to ‘citizen-minus’. As might be expected, she concludes that police detention practices entrench existing patterns of inequality in all these jurisdictions, as indeed do other forms of policing and other ways in which the State exercises authority over citizens. But these things are not entirely monolithic, as is evident from her evidence that American police operate ‘beyond the rules’ more than their British, Irish and Australian equivalents. And so she offers suggestions that would at least ameliorate some of the worst practices that she documents. The book also opens up valuable avenues for further research. Sadly, the funding and opportunities that existed in the late 20th Century for research of this kind have shrunk in the last 20 years. But the space for adventurous and challenging research has not disappeared. This book shows what exciting possibilities there still are."Andrew Sanders, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology, School of Law, University of Warwick

• 1. Introduction2. Theorising Police Powers and Citizens’ Rights3. The Police in Context: Neoliberalism in the Selected Countries 4. The Police in Context: Patterns of Policing in the Selected Countries 5. Inside Police Detention: Conditions, Routines, Rituals and Rules 6. Abiding by the Rules? Legality in Police Custody 7. Styles of Authority 8. Meeting Individual Needs: Vulnerable Detainees in Police Custody 9. Conclusion