Home Secretary implements Shaw Review on scrutiny of police use of force
Officers in England and Wales are facing “unprecedented transparency” with all police use of force, including Tasers, to be recorded and published for the first time from next month.
Officers in England and Wales are facing “unprecedented transparency” with all police use of force, including Tasers, to be recorded and published for the first time from next month.
The Home Secretary has given the green light to recommendations from a three-year review by former West Mercia chief constable David Shaw that “reinforces the proud British model” of policing by consent.
The data on use of force, including physical restraint, will be captured in the new statistical publications to be collected from April 1 and presented as quarterly bulletins by forces from July onwards.
The increased scrutiny will allow meaningful comparison of the effectiveness of different techniques and tactics for the first time, says Amber Rudd.
The news has been broadly welcomed by the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) as a protective measure for officers.
The adoption of Mr Shaw`s study will mean officers record the location and outcome of all Conductive Energy Device (CED) usage, along with the ethnicity and age of those involved.
Ms Rudd said the new rules being introduced would also allow the extra safeguards required for the introduction of the new Taser X2 device.
She stressed: We ask the police to put themselves in harms way to defend us and the use of force is a vital part of their powers.
But when the police take the difficult decision to deploy force it is also vital that the people they serve can scrutinise it.
These new rules will introduce unprecedented transparency to this important subject and reinforce the proud British model of policing by consent.
The Government says it is committed to improving the transparency and accountability of the polices use of force.
In 2014, the then-Home Secretary Theresa May asked Mr Shaw, the former National Police Chiefs` Council Lead for Conflict Management, to head up a wide-ranging review on the subject. It was supported by a diverse range of partners including Amnesty International and BMH UK.
Mr Shaw`s review made a number of recommendations, which set out that the police should publish a range of key information in respect of every serious use of force, including the ethnicity, age, location and outcome.
It suggested reporting on the situations when physical restraint is used, as well as the type of equipment, such as handcuffs, batons, sprays and conductive energy devices.
Work has been going in the background by forces to implement the new data collection system recommended by the review by the beginning of next month.
In addition to the four-times-a-year publishing of data, forces will provide an annual snap-shot of the key information collected to the Home Office as part of the Annual Data Requirement for 2017/18.
Simon Kempton, PFEW lead on operational policing, believes the changes to use of force recording will help protect officers and “advantageous to all involved”.
Mr Kempton concedes that historically there hasnt been one uniform way of recording use of force. “Different forces use different methods with some not keeping central records of how often force has been used at all,” he said.
He added: “The Home Office identified this as a problem, particularly now that the Police Federation is campaigning to make sure assaults against officers are properly recorded.
“Their reasoning is: `Why should there be different rules when force is used against an officer, as opposed to when it is used by an officer?`
“Fair enough. The government saw this as an opportunity to address an issue that goes to the heart of public trust in the police service.
“Our focus during the consultation process has been on making sure the burden on members is as minimal as possible, and to influence the make-up of the resulting form to ensure members who have done their job to the best of their ability are not placed in a difficult position.
“Now for the first time we will have robust data from all forces demonstrating which techniques and equipment really work and which do not.”
Mr Kempton pointed out