The police and their tasers
originally published:
21st August 2009
The latest figures released on the use of tasers by police forces across the country are starting to look concerning. While the jump from 187 uses between October to December 2008 to 250 during January to March this year can be explained by how the Home Office allowed Chief Officers to decide when “specially-trained” units can be deployed with the weapons, it doesn’t explain why different forces are using them far more readily than others.
The most startling are the number of uses by Northumbria police, which since April 2004 has used tasers in one way or another on 704 occasions, 4 more than even the Met has. This is an astounding number, especially when compared to another force of similar size and with a similar urban environment, Merseyside, who also took part in the same trial as Northumbria and which has used them just 76 times in total.
One explanation might be that more units were trained in their use than in the other forces, but Northumbria’s use still seems to be remarkably high. Northumbria claim that their use is highest because they’re the only force to train firearm response officers to also use them, and that the rise would correspond with the drop in firearm officers being deployed, in contrast to other forces, but it also makes you wonder whether because officers know this they more readily call for help when faced with problems they would have dealt with themselves before.
