When the police in England and Wales make an arrest the suspect is usually taken to a police custody block. Here, the suspect is likely to be searched, DNA swabbed, fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed, and will be detained for up to 96 hours before being cautioned, charged or released without further action. While the suspect is entitled to legal advice and may, if classified as vulnerable, receive the support of an appropriate adult, most of the time in police custody is spent in isolation and out of public view. In this sense, police custody blocks are some of the state's secret places; they are the police's territory, and, as we shall see, they are not subject to effective scrutiny or independent regulation. Public controversies about what happens in these secret places arise only when there is a death in custody. Into this setting, under a statutory scheme, come volunteers acting as custody visitors. They make what are supposed to be random and unannounced visits to the custody blocks, in all parts of England and Wales, where they check on the welfare of the detainees. Custody visiting is an important component of the criminal justice system, but it has been almost completely ignored by police scholars, and is largely unknown among the general public. This book is an original, in-depth investigation of this phenomenon, the first analysis of government policy about custody visiting, the first rigorous assessment of its independence and of its effectiveness as a regulator, and the first study to obtain, publish and take account of the views of detainees about custody visiting – voices from behind closed doors.

This introductory chapter outlines the key issues: official policy directed at custody visiting; the independence of the visitors; the effectiveness of their work; and whether custody visiting could act effectively as a regulator of police detention. The chapter explains how understanding these issues depends on the analysis of power relations and ideology. It then looks at the evaluation of custody visiting as voluntary work and explains the reason for my interest. The next section sets out the case study approach at the centre of this research and its validity as a method for reaching an understanding of this topic. The chapter then examines the importance of custody in the criminal justice system.