Increase in Taser Use Following Rollout To Non-Firearms Police
The Home Office has released figures on the use of TASERs by non-firearms police in the UK.
The first sentence of the accompanying press release entitled “Increase in taser use following rollout to more officers” is:
New figures published today show Tasers were used 187 times and discharged 35 times by specially trained units in the period 1 September 2008 to the 31 December 2008.
This is being misinterpreted by the some elements of the media who are not aware that “specially trained units” means non-firearms officers. These 35 discharges are only a small fraction of the total UK police use of TASER, not the total as is being implied. It doesn’t help that the definitions of terms, and one of the main reports of the trial deployment to non-firearms trained officers are only available via the Association of Chief Police Officers, a private limited company not subject to the Freedom of Information Act which is refusing to release such information.
Clarity is not helped by the figures quoted in the press release not actually being available in the linked statistics document. None of the tables is for the period September - December 2008, the period for which the “headline” figures are provided.
This latest report adds extra information to the “TASER Trial Evaluation 2008” report previously published by the the Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) which claimed to have provided the “final figures on Taser use in the trial”; it appears the Home Office have just realised that not all the data was included in that report.
The press release also states 7000 TASERs for non-firearms police have been taken up by UK police forces. Private Eye a couple of weeks ago said the Home Secretary had only been able to give 2000 away.
I support firearms officers having access to TASER to use as an alternative to a gun. I oppose the deployment of TASER to all UK response police. I am concerned such a deployment will change the nature of policing in the UK. If we will move away from an unarmed force and the relationship between the police and public will be seriously damaged.
