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Police to publish data on use of Tasers (3 March 2017)
Date: 03/03/2017
The Home Secretary has announced that police forces will be required to collect and publish detailed data on all their use of force – including the use of Tasers – from April.
The announcement on Thursday follows the authorisation of the Taser X2 for use by police forces in England and Wales.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said officers would have to record the location and outcome of all CED (Conducted Energy Device) usage, along with the ethnicity and age of those involved.
All police use of force – including physical restraint – will be captured in the new statistical publications, to be collected from April 1 and published by forces from July 2017 onwards.
The Home Secretary added that the new rules would allow the increased safeguards and transparency required for the introduction of the new Taser X2 device.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said:
“We ask the police to put themselves in harm’s 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 is committed to improving the transparency and accountability of the police’s use of force.”
In 2014, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, asked former National Police Lead for Conflict Management, Chief Constable David Shaw, to lead a review into the data that should be recorded and published.
The Home Office says that work has been undertaken by police forces to implement the new data collection system recommended in the review by 1 April 2017.
Forces will publish the information locally on a quarterly basis and provide an annual snapshot of the key information collected to the Home Office as part of the Annual Data Requirement for 2017-2018.
The data will allow meaningful comparison of the effectiveness of different techniques – intended to strengthen police training, tactics, decision making, and equipment procurement. In authorising the new Taser, the Home Office said it had supported the police in an open and transparent procurement exercise, to identify a new device that will eventually replace the current TASER X26.
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