UK Police TASER use statistics for the calendar years 2010 and 2011 were published by the Home Office on the 10th of September 2013.
I have two major concerns with the release:
- The statistics no longer separate use by firearms and non-firearms officers. This is a major change to UK policing which the statistics ought help us monitor.
- The statistics are old news, they are out of date, a lot has changed in the almost two years since December 2011, more forces have give non-firearms officers TASER to carry routinely.
Forces which began arming non-firearms officers with TASER following the end of the period covered by the statistics are:
Cambridgeshire, Essex, Sussex and Thames Valley.
Other forces have increased the numbers of non-firearms police armed with TASER in the time after the period these statistics refer to.
The statistics released have prompted massive media coverage focused on the increased police use of TASER; the information is being dripped out slowly, imagine the scale of the reaction if the current levels of police TASER use were known.
The statistics do not help the public monitor the impact of increased routine TASER deployment by non-firearms officers. I breakdown by at least firearms officers and others would be useful, as perhaps would further detail eg. use by neighbourhood officers. I would like to see information on the number of times patrols with TASER being overtly carried occured, and the number of TASER authorised officers included in the statistics.
I have made the raw data available via Google Docs:
Plans To Resume Regular Publication
The report states:
The next publication will be in March 2014 and cover figures for 2012 and 2013. After this point, Police use of TASER statistics will be published every 6 months
Status of the Statistics
The TASER statistics is are considered “official statistics” but not “national statistics”.
5 responses to “UK Police TASER Use Statistics 2010-11”
A list of those given pre-release access to the statistics has been commendably published. It doesn’t include any journalists though, so it appears the Daily Mail coverage was based on leaks.
The ACPO spokesman on TASER has explained the increase in police TASER use as:
My concern is this means TASER is being taken to a different kind of incident; where I think it is more likely to be a disproportionate use of force.
Whereas just a few years ago TASER would only have been used as a less lethal alternative to a gun in situations where if it had not been available a conventional firearm would have to be used now we’re seeing it getting used in relation to less serious incidents.
I don’t want to see us moving towards a country where we are policed by force.
The IPCC have commented; they’ve said they’re going to wait for the Home Office to publish the data from 2012 (in March 2014) before they will be in a position to publish their review and findings of UK police TASER use.
It has been drawn to my attention that the statistics, as they always have done, omit TASER use by British Transport Police; as well as other non- Home Office police forces.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03b2vyn The Report, R4 on Tasers, 19th Sept. You can download a podcast from that link too.