Restraint

There were two cases of death while or around restraint in yesterday's papers, one involving policemen who were called to deal with someone with mental health problems, the other involving security guards at a nightclub dealing with someone else of the same sort. Both cases have progressed to manslaughter charges.

My first thought, in the police case, was that it seemed a bit heavy handed to deal with the matter with the full weight of the criminal law. The policemen involved were presumably doing the best they could - but got it badly wrong, or at least it went badly wrong. So my second thought was should this not be a matter for internal investigation & action, certainly in the first instance? Third thought, perhaps it had been and the internal inquirers thought there were serious charges to be answered and passed the matter to the CPS. Are the police very sensitive to accusations of cover up, and so, when in doubt, they pass the buck and leave those involved to sink or swim as best they can? Although, that said, I imagine their trade union will be helping.

The security guard case is different, with the security guards probably having no established internal procedures of their own. Presumably the police and then the CPS decided that there was a case to answer.

So the bottom line is, not enough information and one can only hope that the courts come to a sensible decision.

But I am still left with a nagging worry that we, as a society, are getting far too ready to pull the gun of legal, in this case, criminal action, forgetting that the law can be both a very blunt and a very expensive instrument. Good for the lawyers though.