Around a quarter of Teesside arrests in last three years were for violent offences
We're continuing with our news special around Middlesbrough custody
Around a quarter of all the arrests carried out by Cleveland Police in the last three years were for violent offences.
A total of 60,000 people for various reasons were brought to Middlesbrough custody suite between January 2021 and September this year.
Inspector Paul Brodie said: "The prisoners will get buzzed in and they'll go to one of the five desks. The police officer will present the person to the custody sergeant, who'll give them the details of the arrest, the sergeant will satisfy themselves that the arrest were both lawful and proportionate and if it is, they'll authorise their detention.
"Everyone who comes into custody will get asked the same questions about their health and wellbeing, then the custody sergeant will make their own observations as well; whether they're displaying any visible injuries, if they look drunk or intoxicated, they'll put that together to formulate a risk assessment and then depending on what's documented on that, the sergeant will set a care plan on how they'll be treated whilst they're in custody.
"We tend to visit a lot of people every half an hour but you can visit them once a hour and we just need to have a look and satisfy ourselves that they're alright. If they're intoxicated then we must visit them every half hour and we've got to go into the cell and interact with them, satisfying ourselves that they're OK, even if you look through and you think they're breathing, you still have to go in and that the intoxication's not masking any other injuries.
"Everywhere in custody is on camera and everywhere is microphoned, that's including the cells. We have a wall of cameras where we'll monitor four people maximum who are of heightened concern, so where we think visiting them every half hour isn't quite enough. We need to keep our eye on these people all the time. We'll still visit them every half hour but there'll be one dedicated member of staff who'll just sit and watch the wall of cameras to check these people."