Police use of Tasers has rocketed by 50 per cent amid a year of crime

December 13, 2018

Revealed: Police use of Tasers has rocketed by 50 per cent amid a year of crime as shocking figures show 18,000 officers were injured in the line of duty last year

Home Office report shows that police used force 313,000 times in the last year
Use of Tasers rose from 11,300 to 17,100 – with the weapons fired 2,000 times
Figures reveal officers were injured 18,000 times while dealing with suspects
Stats show that 20,000 suspects were injured by police, with 12 people dying

Police use of Tasers has rocketed in the past year with officers resorting to the weapons more than 17,000 times in 12 months, new figures show.

Officers in England and Wales fired the electric charges on 2,000 occasions, an increase of around a 100 on the previous year.

Police drew the weapons to protect themselves on 12,000 occasions, with 7,500 incidents involving an armed assailant, new Home Office statistics show.

In total, there were 313,000 incidents involving the ‘use of force’ by police, ranging from straightforward handcuffings to shootings by police marksmen.

More than 125,000 involved suspects who were drunk, while 85,000 subjects were on drugs.

Police use of Tasers increased from 11,000 to 17,000 incidents in the last year, stats reveal

The report states: ‘All types of [Taser] use (discharge, non-discharge, and not stated) increased compared to the previous year. However, the majority (89%) of this increase in use was accounted for by a rise in non-discharge uses.’

The report says the increase could be down to ‘officers dealing with more incidents with the potential for conflict’.

The new statistics reveal that 18,000 officers were injured – 270 seriously – in 313,000 incidents involving a ‘use of force’ by police.

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By comparison, around 20,000 suspects reported being hurt, 380 seriously.

The stats show that 12 suspects were died during or after contact with police.

Five died after being restrained, two after being struck or taken down by officers and one after a firearms deployment, although the Home Office insists these deaths were not necessarily caused by the use of force.

A graph shows how the use of Tasers has increased steadily over the last 10 years, before a large jump since 2016. The purple area of the bar charts show when Tasers were used by officers, the white block on the bars is when Tasers were fired

The issue of whether officers should be allowed to use spit hoods has been debated in recent months after Metropolitan police chiefs came under fire from frontline officers for restricting the use of the hoods to people in custody.

Figures from today’s report show the hoods are being widely used, 2,600 times in total.

More than 2,000 of those involved incidents where officers felt under threat, 1,600 were related to drunken suspects and 130 involved subjects later detained under the mental health act.

What do the ‘Use of Force’ figures show?

Police in England and Wales used force 313,000 times last year.
286,000 of these were lower force restraint, such as handcuffings.
127,000 of the incidents involved drunken suspects.
Tasers were used in 17,000 incidents, being fired in 2,000 of those.
Firearms were used in 3,100 incidents, but the vast majority did not involve shots being fired.
18,000 police officers were injured, 20,000 suspects.
Spit hoods or bite guards were needed on 2,600 occasions.
Police dogs were needed to tackle suspects in 1,900 incidents.

Three quarters of the suspected criminals on whom force was used were recorded as being white, around 15% were black and around 5% were described as Asian.

The stats were revealed as police fight a rising tide of crime on stretched resources.

There have been 125 violent deaths in London this year, the highest number since 2009. An 18-year-old, Jay Sewell, became the latest victim of the carnage in the south-east of the capital.

But London is not the only place affected. Police in Birmingham revealed this week that there had been nine shootings in as many weeks in one area of the city, thought to be tit-for-tat attacks by rival drugs gangs.

The figures also come in the same week that a man was Tasered after entering the grounds of Parliament, where an unarmed officers was murdered by a terrorist last year.

Commentators have praised officers for not shooting the intruder, who shouted ‘we’re coming for you politicians’ before he was taken away and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

The figures were released in the same week an intruder in Parliament was Tasered by police

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