Current Developments

in

UK Policing,

a female Sergeant's perspective

Sergeant Laura Heslop PGCE,MSc,BSc(Hons)

West Yorkshire Police, UK

Overview

• Introduction

• UK Policing – structure and governance

• Developments

• Potential impact on women

• Questions

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

United Kingdom of Great Britain England and Wales and Northern Ireland (43 police forces)

Single police force NI and Scotland

Structure of UK Policing

• Single police force in both Northern Ireland and Scotland

• 43 Territorial police forces in England and Wales

• Small number of specialist and national policing agencies

UK Policing

• Police officers 134,100 26% women• Constables 106,780 29%• Sergeant 22,359 18%• Inspectors 6,833 17%• Chief Inspectors 1,949 15%• Superintendant 997 15%• Chief Supt 445 11%• ACPO 223 17%• Chief Constables 43 14%

Developments

Developments

• Elected Police and Crime Commissioners • Police Reform• Direct entry• Pre-employment training / education• Professionalization• Privatization• The call to routinely arm the police

Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, unarmed police officers killed in Manchester England (17 Sept

2012)

Questions / discussion

Email: lc.james@tiscali.co.uk

Firearms

• 6,653 authorised firearms officers• 13,346 armed response operations • Approx 7000 firearms offences• 349 serious injury• 39 fatal (648 total homicides)• Trend is downwards - 13% lower than

previous 12 months• 3 incidents

Firearms: continued

• Since 1945 – 256 police officers shot and killed and 21 stabbed to death.

• None of these happened in Wales.

• 4 shot and 2 stabbed in Scotland.

• 51 shot and 19 stabbed in England.

• 201 shot in Northern Ireland.

Gun ownership and violence in U.S.A

• In 2004 36.5% of Americans reported having a gun in their home

• Majority of gun-related deaths suicides: (17,352 in 2007)

• In 2009 15,241 homicides in US

• 9,146 deaths were by firearms

• Homicides per capita are 48 times greater than in the UK