Yes even in the West Country tasers are routinely carried and in cities firearms are very visibly carried. Seems like quite a change in the last ten/fifteen years.
Tasers were brought in with the excuse that they would replace the need for guns and reduce how many officers would carry guns. Tasers would, as argued when they were introduced, only be used by specialists in cases where previously they would have to use lethal force.
And yet here we are ~20 years later and tasers have started to become part of a routine carry.
In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.
In 2022, they recorded between 80 and 120 uses of taser per month. Although I suspect "use" in the 2023 report may be drawn not fired, the Q2 2021 reports 230 uses of taser with 51 firings, so applying a similar ratio is still an escalation of 100x over a few years.
Tasers are interesting one, I’m not a huge fan of them myself.
But I did have a very interesting conversation with a Met Police Officer while he was escorting me to hospital. He pointed out that without the Taser, his only other option was his baton. He frequently used the threat of the Taser to deal with situations where he would be forced to use a baton instead, and noted most of the simply the threat of a Taser was enough to get people to reconsider their actions, and accept arrest more peacefully.
Obviously there are places where the presence of Tasers have resulting an increase an escalation which wouldn’t have otherwise, and no doubt there are some officers that abuse their Tasers, but I don’t removing Tasers would be a clear cut improvement. But I would be in favour of more technical controls (automatic logging of a Taser being upholstered, automatic trigging of body-worn cameras, simple method for the public to request footage etc) to prevent abuses.
Edit:
> In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.
I would be very careful reading this data. Looking through what’s available it’s clear to me something significant changed in either police behaviour or, more likely, data collection.
According to the data, Tasers were used only 15 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but in 2019/2020 Q1 usage shot up to 201. They were fired 0 times in 2018/2019 Q4 and fired 30 times in 2019/2020 Q1.
Additionally “tactical communication” was used 1,865 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but only 515 times in 2019/2020 Q1.
So either the Avon and Somerset Police got a lot less talkative, and lot more trigger happy after the 2019 easter holiday, or the 2018/2019 data was collected using a different methodology, and appears to be wildly inaccurate. If we exclude the 2018/2019 data, the increase in Taser usage is still there, but it’s not a 100X increase, more like a 10X increase. Not great I agree, but still an order of magnitude lower than your original analysis.
xnorswap|2 years ago
Tasers were brought in with the excuse that they would replace the need for guns and reduce how many officers would carry guns. Tasers would, as argued when they were introduced, only be used by specialists in cases where previously they would have to use lethal force.
And yet here we are ~20 years later and tasers have started to become part of a routine carry.
In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.
In 2022, they recorded between 80 and 120 uses of taser per month. Although I suspect "use" in the 2023 report may be drawn not fired, the Q2 2021 reports 230 uses of taser with 51 firings, so applying a similar ratio is still an escalation of 100x over a few years.
Statistics from their "use of force" reports: https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/about/our-priorities/u...
avianlyric|2 years ago
But I did have a very interesting conversation with a Met Police Officer while he was escorting me to hospital. He pointed out that without the Taser, his only other option was his baton. He frequently used the threat of the Taser to deal with situations where he would be forced to use a baton instead, and noted most of the simply the threat of a Taser was enough to get people to reconsider their actions, and accept arrest more peacefully.
Obviously there are places where the presence of Tasers have resulting an increase an escalation which wouldn’t have otherwise, and no doubt there are some officers that abuse their Tasers, but I don’t removing Tasers would be a clear cut improvement. But I would be in favour of more technical controls (automatic logging of a Taser being upholstered, automatic trigging of body-worn cameras, simple method for the public to request footage etc) to prevent abuses.
Edit:
> In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.
I would be very careful reading this data. Looking through what’s available it’s clear to me something significant changed in either police behaviour or, more likely, data collection.
According to the data, Tasers were used only 15 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but in 2019/2020 Q1 usage shot up to 201. They were fired 0 times in 2018/2019 Q4 and fired 30 times in 2019/2020 Q1.
Additionally “tactical communication” was used 1,865 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but only 515 times in 2019/2020 Q1.
So either the Avon and Somerset Police got a lot less talkative, and lot more trigger happy after the 2019 easter holiday, or the 2018/2019 data was collected using a different methodology, and appears to be wildly inaccurate. If we exclude the 2018/2019 data, the increase in Taser usage is still there, but it’s not a 100X increase, more like a 10X increase. Not great I agree, but still an order of magnitude lower than your original analysis.