© Tom Blewitt & Zack Griffiths
Grief doesn’t cancel logic. If we’re ready to say a murder of a police or prison officer deserves a whole-life order, we should be just as ready to say: when police or prison officers unlawfully kill someone in their care, they should face the same tariff. Power without parity breeds impunity. And custody is the sharpest edge of state power.
The government has announced plans to expand whole-life orders for those who murder police, prison, or probation officers, including attacks linked to an officer’s former service or while off-duty. This closes a high-profile loophole exposed by the revenge killing of former prison officer Lenny Scott; under the change, perpetrators can expect to spend the rest of their lives behind bars, with amendments added to the Sentencing Bill to broaden eligibility for whole-life orders.
Officials framed this shift as deterrence and respect for service: a new starting point in sentencing to ensure the most dangerous offenders are locked up for life. Whole-life orders already exist, but this expansion clearly signals that killing officers because of their role—past or present—will trigger the harshest consequences, strengthening protections for serving and former officers and their families.
The announcement followed intense coverage of the Scott case, where the killer received a minimum 45-year term rather than a whole-life order because the victim had left the service. Ministers argued that the new law addresses that gap, ensuring revenge or targeted killings tied to service receive whole-life tariffs in future.
If the law values the sanctity of officers’ lives, it must also reckon with the reality of deaths in police and prison custody—where the state holds absolute power and a non-negotiable duty of care.
Official watchdog data reported a 17-year high of 24 deaths in or following police custody in 2023/24, with force used in more than half of those cases. The presence of mental ill-health and drugs/alcohol were common factors, underscoring the vulnerability of people entering custody and the heightened responsibility on officers to de-escalate, safeguard, and provide care.
The latest figures then show a fall to 17 deaths in or following police custody in 2024/25, broadly in line with the decade’s average. The fluctuation doesn’t erase the trend: vulnerability remains consistent, and safeguards remain uneven. Detention is not a neutral space—it magnifies risk, which demands consistent, accountable practice.
Prisons tell an even starker story. In the 12 months to December 2024, deaths in prison custody rose to 342 (up 10%), with 89 self-inflicted deaths—a grim indicator of systemic harm inside closed institutions. By March 2025, deaths surged further to 399, a 37% increase year-on-year, alongside record self-harm rates. If custody is meant to be controlled and safe, these numbers are the opposite of control or safety.
Independent reviews repeatedly warn that people in custody face elevated risks and that many deaths are preventable. The Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody has emphasized urgent action, transparency, and learning across police and prison systems. When the state confines, the state must also protect—and when it fails, accountability can’t be optional.
Custody is a vow: the state assumes total control and total responsibility. Officers are granted power not to dominate, but to safeguard life. When that vow is broken—through unlawful force, cruel neglect, or reckless indifference—the harm is not just personal; it erodes public trust in the entire system.
– Position of trust: Officers aren’t ordinary actors in conflict; they are custodians. The duty of care intensifies the moral and legal stakes.
– Power imbalance: People in custody can’t walk away, seek help, or self-protect. That vulnerability makes safeguards non-negotiable.
– Public legitimacy: Policing by consent collapses if custody becomes a zone where rules bend to power rather than law. Respect is earned by accountability, not rhetoric.
If we can define targeted killings of officers as uniquely grave because of their role, we can also define killings by officers in custody as uniquely grave because of the same role. Any other standard writes a permission slip for abuse.
This is not about criminalizing tough decisions made under genuine threat. It’s about the cases where harm is unlawful, avoidable, and aggravated by the custody context. Whole-life orders should be available—case-by-case—where the court finds:
– Unlawful killing in custody: The officer’s actions meet the legal threshold for murder.
– Aggravating factors tied to role: Abuse of position of trust, exploitation of restraint or isolation, deliberate indifference to urgent medical need.
– Pattern or cover-up: Evidence of coordinated misconduct, falsified reports, or obstruction of justice.
– Gross negligence manslaughter with egregious culpability: Where conduct shows a shocking disregard for life within a closed environment.
Courts already weigh aggravating and mitigating factors. Establishing parity recognizes custody as an aggravator when the perpetrator is the state. It doesn’t predetermine outcomes; it ensures the gravest sanction is on the table where the gravest breach has occurred.
Sentencing is a blunt instrument. If we want fewer funerals and more trust, we need reforms that prevent harm and ensure credible accountability when it happens.
– Mandatory external investigations for all deaths and serious injuries in custody, with full disclosure powers and timelines.
– Automatic referral to prosecutorial review when force or neglect is implicated, not left to internal discretion.
– 24/7 medical screening and rapid escalation for mental health, withdrawal, and acute distress, with binding clinical authority over isolation decisions.
– Continuous recording in custody areas (CCTV/body-worn) with secure retention and independent access in serious incidents.
– De-escalation as doctrine, not a module; trauma-informed practice; strict limits on restraint techniques with proven fatal risks.
– Leadership accountability: measurable harm-reduction targets, public reporting, and consequences for failure.
– Corporate and senior accountability where systemic failures contribute to death.
– Fast-tracked inquests with family legal support and open disclosure, translating “lessons learned” into enforceable change.
When oversight is credible, the need to debate tariffs for officers will decrease because preventable deaths will decrease. Right now, the data says we’re not there.
We honor the lives of police and prison officers by protecting them. We honor the lives of people in custody by protecting them, too. The principle is simple: the law’s harshest penalties should mirror the harshest breaches of trust—on both sides.
Whole-life orders for those who target officers because of their role? Yes. And whole-life orders should be available when officers, abusing that role, unlawfully take a life in custody. Anything less is a double standard dressed as justice.
If the state claims the right to confine, it must accept the duty to care—and the consequences when it fails. That’s not anti-police or anti-prison; it’s pro-truth, pro-accountability, and pro-life.
HMP Prisons Justice Group 