Mincéirs/Travellers in Garda custody

The past decade has witnessed the publication of a growing body of research on Rilantu Mincéirs/Irish Travellers’ experiences in prison. Led in particular by civil society organisations like the Irish Penal Reform Trust and the St Stephen’s Green Trust Travellers in Prison Initiative, and realised by the scholarship of people like Bracken, Brandon, Costello, Doyle, and Gavin in Ireland, Drummond in Northern Ireland and Drummond and James in England, important steps have been taken towards documenting and understanding Mincéirs/Travellers’ experiences of prison. In contrast, research on Mincéirs/Travellers’ experiences in police custody is still sparse. This chapter presents findings regarding Mincéirs/Travellers’ experiences in police custody in Ireland drawing on data collected through the Irish Travellers’ Access to Justice (ITAJ) project. This project, funded by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Irish Research Council, involved the collection of quantitative and qualitative data from over 300 adult members of the Mincéir/Traveller community in Ireland addressing, in particular, their experiences with police and courts in the five years prior to 2022. In total, 19% of the sample had experience of police custody during that period. This chapter examines research findings pertaining to Travellers’ accounts of whether their rights as individuals in custody were upheld, through the lens of the “trinity of custodial rights.”