Statistics relating to use of force by police officers in the course of their duties has been released by Hampshire Constabulary.
Since 1st April 2017, a new way of recording use of force became mandatory for all police forces, with officers required to fill out a form every time any type of force is used in the course of their duties.
In line with police forces around the country, Hampshire Constabulary are releasing this data on a quarterly basis.
Figures show that on the Isle of Wight a total of 112 incidents where use of force was used were recorded between 1st April and 30th June. Of those incidents, 7 resulted in injuries to Police and 15 resulted in injuries to the subject, including 2 ‘severe’ injuries. 4 Police officers were spat at.
Out of the 112 recorded incidents, 13 use of force occurrences took place in custody and 3 in a hospital environment. A total of 67.85% of incidents took place between the hours of 18:00 and 06:00.
Assistant Chief Constable Dave Hardcastle said:
“We welcome the opportunity to provide this information to the communities of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, to help reassure them that our use of force is proportionate, lawful and only applied when necessary. Gathering and presenting this information helps us identify what is working well and where we need to make improvements.
“We work closely with stakeholders, including our independent advisory groups (IAGs), and we welcome the challenge that they provide in holding us to account and ensuring we are as open and as transparent as possible about the methods we apply. We analyse our data to ensure that we do not discriminate against any particular community groups or demographics in our use of force and so that we can respond to any concerns raised.
Article continues below this advertisement “I can assure the public that there is robust and comprehensive process to scrutinise when force is reported to have been used and when our staff are assaulted. This evidence was used to underpin our rollout of spit guards to all our front line officers earlier this year.
“We have also utilised the roll-out of body-worn video to ensure we can review use of force incidents, especially the most serious ones.
“This is the first quarterly publication of our use of force and I hope that this helps to demonstrate our commitment to keeping the communities of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight safe.”
