Use of Force by Ethnicity 2016-2021
Date of request: 13 April 2021
Reference: 518/21
Request
1) Between 1st April 2020 and 31st March 2021, how many use of force incidents occurred, broken down by ethnicity of subject (as perceived by the reporting officer) e.g. White, Black, Asian, Other, etc.
2) As well as these overall use of force figures, please provide:
a) How many incidents involved a less lethal weapon (CED eg Taser or AEP) being drawn but not discharged, broken down by perceived ethnicity of the subject.
b) How many incidents involved a less lethal weapon (CED eg Taser or AEP) being discharged, broken down by perceived ethnicity of the subject.
3) Can you please also provide the same data requested in questions 1, 2a and 2b, for the following time periods:
Between 1st April 2019 and 31st March 2020
Between 1st April 2018 and 31st March 2019
Between 1st April 2017 and 31st March 2018
Between 1st April 2016 and 31st March 2017
Response
Please find below the information we have identified as relevant to your request covering the financial years 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21. Please note that the ethnicity of the individuals provided below is ‘officer defined.’
The use of force information for the financial year 2016/17 was not recorded by the force therefore this has not been provided in the dataset below.
| Overall – Use of Force | ||||||
| White | Black | Mixed | Asian | Other | Not recorded | |
| 2017-18 | 7423 | 775 | 255 | 140 | 59 | 43 |
| 2018-19 | 7302 | 869 | 273 | 179 | 55 | 35 |
| 2019-20 | 8701 | 767 | 365 | 182 | 50 | 91 |
| 2020-21 | 12209 | 1102 | 461 | 192 | 193 | 148 |
| Not Discharged | ||||||
| White | Black | Mixed | Asian | Other | Not recorded | |
| 2017-18 | 468 | 52 | 18 | 8 | 3 | 9 |
| 2018-19 | 566 | 91 | 29 | 15 | 8 | 19 |
| 2019-20 | 828 | 98 | 29 | 8 | 4 | 42 |
| 2020-21 | 987 | 117 | 40 | 26 | 15 | 32 |
| Discharged | ||||||
| White | Black | Mixed | Asian | Other | Not recorded | |
| 2017-18 | 76 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018-19 | 85 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| 2019-20 | 153 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| 2020-21 | 182 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
Please be aware that we have made changes to the way in which we record use of force, which had been in place, since 2017. As of October 2020 all use of force information is being recorded electronically and being held on a central system. We have also made changes to ethnicity recording, with the aim to assist us with capturing more detailed information in order to provide a true representation of both the types of force used by an officer and the personal characteristics of the subject of which the force was used on. As a consequence of these changes we have seen an increase in use of force recording and clarity, which is not directly comparable to previous years.