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Bit more information here:

INQUEST uses the term deaths in custody as a shorthand to refer to all deaths in state detention including in prisons, secure training centres, in police custody, immigration detention centres and psychiatric detention and those deaths involving contact with state agents.

INQUEST’s casework and monitoring service has recorded over 4,500 deaths in prison and in police custody in England and Wales between 1990 and 2013. Many of these deaths have raised serious issues of negligence, systemic failures to care for the vulnerable, institutional violence, racism, inhumane treatment and abuse of human rights.

INQUEST has identified a number of particular concerns that arise from deaths occurring in police custody:

deaths which raise issues about standards of care such as deaths due to self injury, alleged drunkenness or drug intoxication, or poor medical care;
excessive use of force by police officers;
disproportionate numbers of deaths following the use of force against people from black and minority ethnicity (BME) communities;
fatal shootings by police officers.
INQUEST has been involved in supporting the families of a high number of people who have died in police custody or following contact with the police, and is continuing to monitor such deaths closely.

Related links:

Mental health deaths

Immigration deaths

Black and minority ethnic deaths

Statistics of deaths in police custody

Statistics of police shootings

http://www.inquest.org.uk/issues/police-deaths

http://www.inquest.org.uk/statistics/deaths-in-police-custody