Parliamentary Search

Written question asked by Joan Ryan (Labour) on Monday, 17 October 2016, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 19 October 2016. It was answered by Brandon Lewis (Conservative) on Tuesday, 1 November 2016 on behalf of the Home Office.

Assaults on Police

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to improve the quality and comparability of data on assaults on the police.

Answer

We have worked closely with police forces in recent years to improve the quality of data on assaults on the police. In July 2015 provisional data were published for the first time since 2009/10, presenting data on assaults without injury from crime recording systems alongside information from health and safety systems to provide a more complete picture of assaults.

These data were then developed further in 2016, with forces asked to submit more complete data on assaults from their crime recording systems, including cases that involved injury as well as cases that did not. This allowed a more refined figure of 23,000 assaults on police officers in 2015/16 to be estimated.

We are continuing to work with forces to better capture assaults that involve injury to the police in recorded crime data.

Recorded crime data on “assaults without injury on a constable” are published at Community Safety Partnership (equivalent to boroughs in London) and Police Force Area level, and are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables

There are no current plans to collect this data at parliamentary constituency level.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
49009
Session
2016-17
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Databases Assaults on police
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk