Study demonstrates importance of mounted police

High visibility of police horses and riders on neighbourhood patrols boosts levels of public confidence in the police, research has concluded.

Over an 18-month study, researchers from the University of Oxford and RAND Europe found t that mounted police units generated around six times more public interest than foot patrols over the same period, although most of these interactions were brief.

The study examined public reactions to mounted units on neighbourhood patrols, a music festival, at football matches and public demonstrations, with neighbourhood patrols by pairs of mounted police officers trialled in three areas in Gloucestershire and London in March this year.

Interviews with police at the start of the project suggested that mounted units were broadly viewed as a resource for crowd control. However, following the study, mounted units were shown to have substantial value in other scenarios too, particularly in a neighbourhood policing role.

The units were subsequently found to help build positive relationships with the public, acting as an `ice-breaker` for encouraging greater interaction between police officers and members of the public.

Dr Ben Bradford, from the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford, said: “In community settings, the horse and rider combination appears to act as a sort of ambassador and ice-breaker for the police.

“People come up to say hello or to make a fuss of the horse before having a quick conversation with the officer. Although most of the exchanges we saw were brief, they tended to be very friendly, and the patrols increased police visibility.”

He added: “Many people react positively to greater police visibility in their neighbourhood, and we believe this translated into higher levels of trust and confidence in the areas where the mounted patrols took place.”

As part of the study, public surveys also tested whether the mounted unit patrols had an effect on public trust and confidence in the police. The researchers found that the use of mounted patrols had a bolstering effect on trust and confidence in the trial sites, when compared to opinion in three control sites that did not receive mounted patrols. The size of this effect amounted to a greater than 10 percentage point shift in opinion, on some measures.

At the Glastonbury Festival in June 2014, researchers also observed more than three times more interactions between festival-goers and mounted police than with officers on foot, with most of these interactions being positive.

The report added that mounted units appear to be able to intervene in crowd disorder situations when other resources, such as police on foot or in vehicles, would be “ineffective or even risk aggravating the situation”.

Mounted police at football matches were also found to have a small, but statistically significant effect on levels of disorder. However, the report urged against about overestimating the need for mounted police at all crowd events, saying it is difficult to attribute successful outcomes solely to the presence of mounted units.

Commenting on the findings, Deputy Chief Constable Rod Hansen, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) lead for mounted policing, said: “This provides the police with new evidence suggesting that mounted units still have great utility in modern policing, particularly in neighbourhoods.

“In the light of this, despite the financial limitations, we must ensure that we do not inadvertently lose a capability that offers so much to policing services without fully understanding the consequences.”