Inexperienced police 'lacking confidence' to use force - as assaults on officers soar

20 September 2024, 06:08 | Updated: 20 September 2024, 06:52

Inside the force: LBC visits a police training facility

Police officers are ‘lacking the confidence’ needed to use their powers, a chief constable has told LBC.

Jason Hogg, from Thames Valley Police, made the comments as he showed us the new training being given to his team, at a time when assaults on officers have reached a new record high.

The Home Secretary revealed last week that 125 police officers are being attacked, on average, every day, calling it “a stain on our society”.

Chief Constable Jason Hogg said: “We have to work in quite a difficult context and it means officers have a really challenging role - probably a lot more challenging than when I was a young officer.

“I think there is a pushback against authority in our society and people are prepared to challenge than they were before and certainly be more litigious than ever before.

“In that context, I do worry sometimes that our officers may not have the confidence to intervene and use their powers, like I would expect, in order to keep themselves safe and the public.”

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It comes as concerns have been raised about the vast inexperience among police officers, after last year’s government Uplift programme, which brought in 20,000 new recruits.

As a result, figures suggest close to 40% of officers across England and Wales have now been in the service for just five years or less.

National training has been adapted around how officers are taught about the use of force, to include more scenario-based training.

Its aim is to help them problem solve and prepare for what they might see on the job.

LBC watched one scenario where a drug user experienced what’s known as acute behavioural disturbance, where he began attacking police officers in his home with bottles and a knife.

Another required a taser-trained officer to be called on to stop a distressed man in a park harming both himself and the officers who were sent to respond.

Jason Hogg told us his officers are getting used to being filmed by bystanders in everything they do, despite the extra pressure it places on them. But he added that they also now film everything to cover their backs.

“I think they accept it as a fact of life. Our officers have personal issue body worn video, which they turn on 100% of the time and the reason to do that is to protect themselves.

“Sometimes we might be sent a complaint with a highly edited clip of an incident but the reality is that it has been recorded in full on body worn video and it can give a full impression of what happened and the justification of the force they sometimes have to use.

“I think we can do more and more scrutiny in terms of how the police are trained and how they use their powers but that costs money and the more money we spend on scrutiny the less officers I have on the streets.”

Other senior officers have quietly raised concerns about the amount of scrutiny the police are under whenever they use force.

Snippets of videos taken at incidents are often shared widely and watchdog investigations have been known to take a long time to conclude.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said in a speech on Wednesday: “There is a growing crisis in officers’ confidence to act and that makes us all less safe. 

“It is not just about abuse and intimidation, the system we have created to hold officers to account has also got out of kilter.

“We know that a third of officers say that reduced confidence has led them to voluntarily surrender their public order accreditation, a third say they are giving up their taser accreditation, and over a quarter their firearms tickets.

“This means fewer officers doing the high-risk jobs we need them to do.”

Earlier this month, Rachel Watson, the new director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) told a police conference that she wanted to change their processes.

“The IOPC has to demonstrate that we are as effective and efficient as we can possibly be - that means we must reform and that transformation must be radical. That will be at the heart of my mission for the coming years,” she told the Police Superintendents Association annual conference.

“We are often blamed for the length of time it takes to [investigate complaints] and we take our fair share of responsibility but we are part of a broader system that sometimes feels like delay is baked in - and that is on all of us.”

A criminal investigation is still taking place into two Greater Manchester Police officers who were filmed responding to an incident at Manchester Airport on 23rd July.

The IOPC says it’s looking at whether they committed assault as they arrested four men, while appearing to kick them.