Publications

This is the third annual report we have published on deaths in custody in Scotland and the
investigations into these. Previously we have focused on prison. In this report, we are including deaths in as many forms of state custody where there was public information.

This report therefore reports information about deaths for:
• prison
• police custody and contact
• migration detention and asylum accommodation
• detention under the Mental Health Act
• looked after children and young people
• people with learning disabilities and autistic people psychiatrically hospitalised

In the first part, we report on deaths of people in the care or custody of the state, over the past
year and longer term. In the second part we analyse characteristics of Scotland’s public system
for investigating deaths – fatal accident inquiries or FAIs.

The report was written by Sarah Armstrong, Betsy Barkas, Linda Allan, Stuart Allan and Debbie Cairns.