Officer safety is crucial to police training yet in many areas it is far from satisfactory and leaves officers exposed to the many dangers associated with modern-day policing. This article examines some of the most important components of officer safety and explains why officers are being placed at risk by a lack of coordination and poor methods of training. It also sets out the law relating to the use of force.
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References
1.
Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, 1997. For the purposes of this article, officer includes uniformed officers, CID and plain clothes officers, members of the Special Constabulary and civilian support staff working in an operational capacity (such as, traffic wardens, front office staff, detention officers, etc.)
2.
Ibid.
3.
BoylenM. and LittleR.E. (1990) “Fatal Assaults on United States Law Enforcement Officer”, The Police Journal, Vol. LXIII January-March, p. 208.
4.
Visitors to police premises and civilian support staff were formally covered under the 1974 Act.
5.
Section 1 of the 1997 Act inserts into the 1974 Act, a new s. 51A, which provides that “a person who, otherwise than under a contract of employment, holds the office of constable … shall be treated as an employee …”.
6.
The recording of incidents for the purpose of developing a preventive strategy is likely to be more comprehensive than any data which might be collected for other management purposes.
7.
Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, 1997.
8.
Ibid.
9.
It seems that some forces officially do not allow this practice despite many officers (correctly) asserting that “their officer safety training emphasized officers in pairs resolving conflict situations”: Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, 1997.
10.
Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, 1997.
11.
Taken from the British Self-Defence Governing Body's module Handling Violence and Aggression at Work, a training programme delivered in conjunction with West Cheshire College and accredited by the National Open College Network.
12.
Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, 1997 (emphasis added).
13.
See, further, WilsonC. (1993) Police-Citizen Interactions, National Police Research Unit, Australia.
14.
WilsonC. (1994) Managing the Risk of Patrol, National Police Research Unit, Australia.
15.
Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, (1997).
16.
See, for example, research carried out by Northampshire Police which indicates that 95.4% of their arrests involved no use of force.
17.
MoxeyM. and McKenzieI. (1993) “Assaults on Police”, Policing, Vol. 9, pp. 172–186.
18.
25% of assaults were sustained by 12% of assaulted officers. Concentration of victims of violence can also be seen outside of the police service. The 1998 British Crime Survey shows that 31.1% of victims of violence suffered more than one incident during 1997. 15.2% were victims of two incidents and 15.9% of three or more incidents. The 15.9% of victims who were victims of three or more incidents of violence experienced 42.6% of all violent incidents reported to the survey.
19.
PhillipsS. and CochraneR. (1991) Assaults against the police: A study in three phases, Birmingham University, unpublished.
20.
Literally, “techniques of arrest”. Its techniques are derived mostly from judo and aikido.
21.
In those cases where the author has been instructed as an expert witness to advise on injuries sustained by officers tripping on mats during training, the cause of these injuries can be attributed, not to the fact that mats were used, but to their condition or the way they were set out on the floor. The author has also seen many cases where the use of mats would have either prevented or reduced the impact on an injury caused during a take-down or fall.
22.
Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, 1997. The author has noted on numerous occasions when interviewing officers injured during training that they have been unable to demonstrate, for identification purposes, the technique which was being practised at the time they sustained their injury. If they were unable to demonstrate it for the purposes of reconstruction, they would certainly not have been able to defend themselves with it.
23.
An appointment is the term used to describe the protective equipment carried or worn by officers.
24.
It has been suggested by Brown, Assaults on Police Officers., Police Research Group, August 1994, that refresher courses take place every five years. This is far too frequent. To have any real value, refresher courses should take place no less than annually, and preferably every six months.
25.
Report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Officer Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, 1997.
26.
Although problems associated with its use in confined spaces are noted.
27.
[1982] QB 526.
28.
Kock and Rix (1996) A Review of Police Trials of the CS Aerosol Incapacitant, Police Research Group, November.
29.
Ibid.
30.
This is where officers are exposed to CS via a general exposure canister rather than being sprayed directly in the face which was the original intention. The direct spraying of volunteer officers during training was withdrawn following an incident during a training session for trainers where a Metropolitan Police officer sustained a more serious reaction to the spray than was expected and which required hospital treatment.
31.
Kock and Rix, op. cit.
32.
The Maudsley's chief nursing advisor, Been Thomas said: “Our fear is that more and more police officers accept the use of CS spray as a first line of defence. We have got to stop this tide.” Majorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity, Sane, has described such practice as “a scandal”. One mental health practitioner has stated: “I thought CS was to help police prevent crime, not hit people with mental health problems. In the past, police would have spent more time talking to patients. The spray seems like a short-cut, a quick and easy answer. These are patients that nurses deal with daily — we don't have to resort to this.”Independent on Sunday, August 2, 1998.
33.
For an excellent discussion on the police use of lethal force see PalmerPhil (1998) The Police Journal, Vol. LXXI, No. 1, January, pp. 35–46.
34.
Generally, private defence (self-defence or the defence of another) is regulated by the common law whilst public defence (for example, to prevent crime or effect a lawful arrest) is regulated by statute.
35.
An interesting point of construction arises in connexion with the statutory defence where it can be seen that the sections refer specifically to the use of force. What is not clear is whether anything less than force may be used. It is submitted that since the common law permits conduct which amounts to less than force and since ss.3(1) CLA 1967 and 117 PACE 1984 permit the use of reasonable force, anything less than force ought to be permitted. However, this may not be the position following the Divisional Court's ruling in Blake [1993] Crim. LR 586. A vicar was one of a group of demonstrators protesting about the use of force by the allied coalition against Iraq. He was charged with causing criminal damage after he used a marker pen to write a Biblical quotation on a concrete pillar next to the Houses of Parliament. He argued that he was carrying out the instructions of God and therefore had a lawful excuse under s.5(2)(a) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 and, further, relying on s.5(2)(b) of that Act, his actions were intended to protect the property of another. His appeal against conviction for causing criminal damage was dismissed. The court also considered whether his actions may have been justified by s.3(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 and held that his conduct was “insufficient to amount to the use of force within the section”. What would have been the position had Blake used a hammer and chisel (ie, force) to cut the letters into the concrete instead of using a marker pen? To the extent that this case suggests that actions which are less serious than using force might not be excused when the use of actual force might be, a further authority on this point would be welcome.
36.
McInnes (1971) 55 Cr. App. R 551; Clegg [1995] 1 AC 482.
37.
[1982] QB 526.
38.
A child under the age of 10 cannot incur criminal responsibility: S.50, Children and Young Persons Act 1933 as amended by s.16 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963. Until September 30, 1998 a child over the age of 10 and under the age of 14 was similarly below the age of criminal responsibility unless the prosecution could prove that he knew that his actions were “seriously wrong” rather than “mere naughtiness”: See IPH v. Chief Constable of South Wales [1987] Crim. LR 42. However, s. 34 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (effective from September 30, 1998) abolishes the rebuttable presumption that a child over the age of 10 but under 14 is doli incapax and such children will, for the purposes of the criminal law, be treated as other juveniles when deciding whether or not it is appropriate to prosecute.
39.
[1971] AC 814 (Privy Council).
40.
(1991) 94 Cr. App. R 367.
41.
[1996] 2 Cr. App. R 128.
42.
[1993] 4 All ER 629.
43.
It is always open to a jury to disbelieve an accused if it concludes that because of the unreasonableness of his conduct his belief was not honestly held.
44.
(1991) 94 Cr. App. R 367.
45.
[1987] 3 All ER 411.
46.
This decision was approved by the Privy Council in Beckford [1988] AC 130 where the accused, an armed police officer, shot dead a man whom he alleged was armed and had been shooting. The Privy Council held that the accused had a defence on the facts which he mistakenly, but honestly, thought existed.
47.
[1987] 3 WL R 321.
48.
The same point was also considered by the House of Lords in Attorney-General for Northern Ireland's Reference (No.1 of 1975) [1977] AC 105 where Lord Diplock stated (at 148) “If a plea of self-defence is put forward in answer to a charge of murder and fails because excessive force was used though some force was justifiable, as the law now stands the accused cannot be convicted of manslaughter”.
49.
[1995] 1 AC 482.
50.
In February 1998 the Northern Ireland Appeal Court quashed Clegg's conviction and ordered a retrial which is currently taking place in Belfast.
51.
Revill v. Newbery [1996] 2WLR239.
52.
No action will arise from a bad cause.
53.
For example, in Revill v. Newbery the damages awarded to the plaintiff were reduced by two-thirds on this basis.
54.
Motorist Rodney King was allegedly beaten by four Los Angeles police officers armed with side-handled batons. The officers' subsequent acquittal led to the worst riots in United States history with 1,900 persons injured, 44 killed, 5,200 arrested, almost 3,800 buildings destroyed by fire and costs estimated to be in excess of $1 billion.
55.
Speaking extra-judicially in 1983.
56.
The Special Constabulary has recently benefited from separate funding arrangements made available by Home Office grants.
57.
The expression “defensive tactics training” here includes all forms of officer safety training, including tactical communication, conflict management, self defence, control and restraint, baton, cuff and CS spray.
