Safeguarding Guide for Police Officers

What risk factors make someone more likely to experience abuse?

Individuals encountered by police officers can be vulnerable and their vulnerability may mean their interests need protection. It is possible that a person’s decision-making capacity may be subject to change depending on the circumstances being experienced at the time, such as illness, injury or being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, and various other factors. Fluctuation of capacity means that a person’s ability to understand information, retain that information and make an informed decision can come and go which can make them more vulnerable.
Abuse and neglect can occur anywhere to anyone; however, there are risk factors that can make a person more vulnerable to abuse.

An adult at risk of abuse may:

• Have an illness affecting their mental or physical health.
• Be physically dependent on others.
• Have a sensory impairment.
• Have a learning disability.
• Suffer from drug or alcohol problems.
• Have low self-esteem.
• Be unable to make their own decisions.
• Have a previous history of abuse.
• Have negative experiences of disclosing abuse.
• Be frail.
• Have experienced a lack of access to health and social services or high-quality information.

Any child can be at risk of abuse; however, there are a number of factors that can increase a child’s vulnerability to abuse and neglect including, but not limited to:

• Socioeconomic factors such as poverty, poor housing and deprivation.
• Child factors, for example disabled children are more vulnerable to abuse or neglect.
• Family factors such as parental/carer substance misuse problems, parental/carer mental health problems and domestic abuse. These factors may be compounded if the parent/carer lacks support from family or friends and experiences social isolation.
• The parent or carer does not engage with services.
• There have been one or more previous episodes of child abuse or neglect.
• The parent or carer has a mental health or substance misuse problem which has a significant impact on the tasks of parenting.
• There is chronic parental stress.
• The parent or carer experienced abuse or neglect as a child.
• A family history of maltreatment.
• Being in care, a looked-after child.
• A history of offending, either parent or child.

These lists are not exhaustive, and other people might also be considered to be adults or children at risk.

The types of abuse children can encounter

Statutory guidance across the four countries of the UK describes four main categories of child abuse, and these definitions will normally be reflected in local organisations’ policies and procedures.

The four categories are:

• Physical harm/abuse – this may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise causing physical harm to a child/young person. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child/young person. Harm can also occur due to practices linked to faith and culture, for example, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
• Emotional harm/abuse – this is the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child/young person such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child/young person’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to children that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child the opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or “making fun” of what they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. These may include interactions that are beyond a child’s developmental capacity, as well as overprotection and limitation of exploration and learning, or preventing the child from participating in normal social interaction. It may involve seeing or hearing the ill treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying, including cyberbullying, causing children/young people frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or the exploitation or corruption of children/young people. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all types of maltreatment of a child/young person, though it may occur alone.
• Sexual abuse – this involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, not necessarily involving a high level of violence, whether or not the child is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including assault by penetrative acts, for example rape or oral sex, or non-penetrative acts such as masturbation, kissing, rubbing and touching outside of clothing. They may include non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, pornographic sexual images, watching sexual activities, encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways, or grooming a child in preparation for abuse, including via the internet. Sexual abuse is not solely perpetrated by adult males; women can also commit acts of sexual abuse, as can other children.
• Neglect – this is the persistent failure to meet a child/young person’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child/young person’s development. Neglect may occur during pregnancy, for example as a result of maternal substance abuse, maternal mental ill health or learning difficulties or a cluster of such issues. Where there is domestic abuse and violence towards a carer, the needs of the child may be neglected.
  Once a child is born, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:
  – Provide adequate food, clothing and shelter, including exclusion from home or abandonment.
  – Protect a child/young person from physical and emotional harm or danger.
  – Ensure adequate supervision, including the use of inadequate caregivers.
  – Ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment, also including neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child/young person’s basic emotional needs.

The types of abuse adults can encounter

There are ten types of abuse listed in the Care Act (2014).

These are:

• Physical abuse – this may involve physical violence, misuse of medication, inappropriate restraint or sanctions.
• Sexual abuse – this can include verbal sexual abuse, non-consensual touching, fondling, physical restraint, cornering, tickling, kissing, excessive cleaning of genitals, enemas, intercourse, sodomy, oral sex, invasion of privacy and stalking.
• Psychological abuse – this includes emotional abuse, threats of harm or abandonment, deprivation of contact, humiliation, blaming, controlling, intimidation, harassment and verbal abuse.
• Financial or material abuse – including theft, fraud, exploitation, pressure in connection with wills, property, inheritance or financial transactions, and misuse or misappropriation of property, possessions or benefits.
• Neglect and acts of omission – including ignoring medical or physical care needs, failure to provide access to appropriate health, social care, or educational services, withholding medication, and inadequate nutrition and heating.
• Discriminatory abuse – including racist and sexist abuse or abuse based on a person’s disability.
• Domestic abuse – including psychological, physical, sexual, financial and emotional abuse, and so-called honour-based violence.
• Modern slavery – includes slavery, human trafficking, forced labour and domestic servitude.
• Organisational abuse – including neglect and poor care practice within an institution or specific care setting such as a hospital or care home.
• Self-neglect – includes a wide range of behaviour neglecting to care for personal hygiene, health or surroundings and includes behaviour such as hoarding.

The safeguarding issues police officers may come across

Force control room (FCR) staff help to identify vulnerable people from the information received when members of the public call for help; this can identify possible safeguarding issues. FCR staff may refer calls involving domestic violence or children in environments where drug and alcohol abuse is suspected or known to the appropriate service.

Issues that police officers may come across include, but are not limited to:

Child sexual exploitation – this is a form of abuse involving children and young people under the age of 18 where the young person is encouraged to perform sexual activities in exchange for ‘something’ (for example, food, accommodation and money). It often involves using technology such as mobile phones or the internet and can take the form of organised crime.

Domestic violence – many people think that domestic abuse is about intimate partners, or abuse of women by men. But it may also be caused by wider family members, or committed by women towards men and in same-sex relationships.

Modern slavery – this encompasses slavery, human trafficking, forced labour and servitude. Traffickers and perpetrators use whatever means they have at their disposal to coerce, deceive and force individuals into a life of abuse, servitude and inhumane treatment. Any consent victims have given to their treatment will be irrelevant where they have been coerced, deceived or provided with payment or benefit to achieve that consent. A large number of active organised crime groups are involved in modern slavery, but it is also committed by individual opportunistic perpetrators.

Financial or economic abuse – this includes theft; fraud; scamming; coercion in relation to an adult’s financial affairs or arrangements, including in connection with wills, property, inheritance or financial transactions; or the misuse or misappropriation of possessions or benefits. Examples include re-mortgaging or sale of the person’s property without knowledge, consent or under coercion; misappropriating money or valuables; forcing or coercing changes to a will and testament; and preventing access to money, property, possessions or inheritance.

Abuse against older persons – breach of trust implies reliance on the integrity of a person when providing a service or carrying out a task entrusted to them. Betrayal of trust or abuse of authority in the context of older people could therefore include a wide range of service providers, such as minibus drivers, cleaners, council contractors, carers or tradespeople.

Cuckooing – this is where criminal gangs target the homes of vulnerable people and adults with care and support needs, to be used for drug dealing, and the victims are often left with no choice but to cooperate.

Other issues can include:

• Physical or sexual assault or rape
• Psychological abuse or hate crime
• Wilful neglect
• Unlawful imprisonment
• Theft and fraud
• Gang and youth violence, county lines, cuckooing
• Trafficking adults and/or children
• Drugs and/or alcohol abuse
• Domestic abuse of adults and/or children
• Elder abuse
• Radicalisation and extremism

These lists are not exhaustive.