Detention and arrest of suspects

What is detention?
When the police believe that someone has committed a crime, they can detain that person in custody for up to six hours. At the end of the six hours the police must release the suspect unless they believe they have sufficient evidence to arrest them. If they release the suspect without charging them, they may still carry on investigating the crime.

What happens when someone is arrested?
Someone can be arrested after being detained, or can be arrested straight away. For example, if the police have enough evidence that someone has committed a serious crime, they can be arrested, and taken straight to a police station.

Being arrested gives the police powers to take photographs of the person, as well as fingerprints and DNADeoxyribonucleic Acid. A substance that is found in all cells in a human body. Police take samples of this by swabbing the inside of a person’s mouth. The cells found in this swab can be used to identify someone. samples. When someone has been arrested, the police will decide whether to keep them in custody until going to court the next day, or if they will be let out released on an UndertakingOften called police bail. After the police arrest someone they may release them from the police station if the person signs a document undertaking (promising) to come to court on the date the police have given them. They must agree to other conditions such as not committing any other crimes.. 

Young offenders
Offenders who are over the Age of Criminal ResponsibilityIn Scotland, children are thought to be responsible for what they do by the time they are eight. Any child involved in crime will usually be dealt with by the Children’s Reporter Administration, rather than the Procurator Fiscal. but are under the age of 16 (or 18 if they are subject to a child supervision order) can still be arrested and detained, but the rules are slightly different from those described here, which are for an adult offender.

Further information about the Youth Justice System is available on this website.

Jargon Buster

Some words in this website have legal meanings, which may be different to what you would expect, or may be unfamiliar to you. This section explains these words as well as some other words you may come across in the criminal justice system.