Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Ethics Playing Cards
Copyright © 2025 Compass Ethics
6
A young at-risk person, considered a danger to themselves and the public, is causing a disturbance. From experience you know there is no secure accommodation for this person. What do you do?
Case Studies
- A man known to the police is taken into custody because they are unfit through drugs. They are known to be homeless, and their immigration status means they are not eligible for state support. No other agencies will take responsibility. Custody is full, but it is below 0º C outside. What do you do?
Discussion
- Clearly risks to an individual’s life or well-being have always got to be taken seriously. The tools at your disposal may, of course, not really be the right ones for the situation. But you are still the one who has to make the decision, how do you balance the risks involved?
- You will often be expected to deal with situations for which the police do not have the answer, but there is nobody else who can help. What situations like this have you been faced with in the past?
- What help/guidance/advice can colleagues who have been in a similar situation provide? It is important that colleagues feel supported when they make difficult calls based on imperfect information. Think about how you can support your team and what support you would expect from your superiors in such a situation.
- When is a ‘No Further Action’ decision appropriate due to the absence of resources vs. what the National Decision-making Model might suggest?
People often think they are presented with dilemmas because they face a difficult choice. Most of these situations are not in fact dilemmas because there is actually an answer that is within your power to give even if there may be some difficulty/cost in doing the right thing. However, sometimes you may be faced with a genuine dilemma where there is no good option available, and whatever you do will be seen by somebody as the wrong thing. In instances when no good option is available the welfare and safeguarding of the child/person are paramount.
The challenge for the police is NOT to look at why this is difficult and NEVER lose sight of article 2 rights of the child. The issue is that accommodation is NOT a matter for the police – that’s for the local authority to grapple with. The only concern is to ensure that policing makes decisions that preserve the wellbeing of the child and not deviate, and by making the right decision based on that criteria only.