THIRTEEN Essex Police officers are assaulted on duty every week, according to Government statistics.<\/p>\n
However Essex Police Federation said it believes the true figure of attacks on Essex Police officers \u2013 listed as 666 over the past financial year by the Home Office \u2013 is actually much higher. And encouraged all officers to let the force know when they are assaulted on duty otherwise assaults on officers\u2019 risk being relegated to second-degree crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality, I think, would show that that number is far higher,\u201d said Steve Taylor, Chairman of Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we need a bit of a cultural change. It\u2019s not acceptable to be assaulted in the execution of your duties. And that cultural changes come if we\u2019re not completing \u2018use of force\u2019 forms, and the forms for officers who are assaulted, if we\u2019re not taking the time to do those properly, we don\u2019t get an accurate picture of what that level of assault looks like.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this means when we come to make the argument for better equipment, better training, better policies, we don\u2019t have the data to support it. So I already know from experience that we\u2019re not doing that properly. But we are trying to change it round. It just involves buy-in from everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Steve\u2019s message to members would be, \u2018anytime you\u2019re assaulted, please report it\u2019?<\/p>\n
He concluded: \u201cMy message to supervisors would be, familiarise yourself with the new policy and procedure around colleagues who are assaulted. My message to colleagues who are assaulted is, make sure it\u2019s recorded properly. Make sure the \u2018injury on duty\u2019 form is done. Make sure, where suitable, that someone is taking your statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving been assaulted at work, you\u2019re a victim of crime yourself, and we shouldn\u2019t allow ourselves to take the easy option because we\u2019re so pushed for time and therefore relegate assaults on officers to second-degree crimes. It\u2019s not fair on us, and ultimately it\u2019s not fair on the public we serve because we rob ourselves of that data which we can then use to support improvements in other areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
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THIRTEEN Essex Police officers are assaulted on duty every week, according to Government statistics. However Essex Police Federation said it believes the true figure of attacks on Essex Police officers\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3661,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659\/revisions\/3661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}