Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of ...

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Home Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev w19 The group also sees this as an opportunity to build our capacity and infrastructure, and position ourselves to take greater advantage of commissioning opportunities, building upon our community access and experience of service delivery, particularly in respect of so-called “hard to reach” or disengaged and vulnerable groups. The Evidence confirms that in 2008 Be Birmingham carried out one of the largest and most comprehensive mapping exercises of public investment in the UK, which makes it possible for Birmingham to immediately respond positively to the principles and challenges of “Total Place”. At the Moving Beyond Project Funding Conference organised by Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands (18 May 2010), Stephen Hughes, Chief Executive Officer of Birmingham, appeared to be calling for the citizens of Birmingham to be accountable and be counted for their contribution to the transformation of the city, and rightly so. He went further by expressing confidence that Birmingham’s programme of transformation towards achieving the “Total Place” agenda will be successful as it takes on a “customer first” and “needs led” approach. Those who have contributed to this submission appreciate and support the above approach and have direct experience of the barriers to refocusing services to local needs that could inform policies and strategies. For example, evidence and direct experience confirm that the lack of secure, well-resourced local delivery points is a significant barrier. Our request is therefore to retain and develop existing and new parts of the third sector African and Caribbean infrastructure to provide key delivery points in disadvantaged urban communities. We believe that the best means of co-ordinating these efforts is by providing resources for the development of an African and Caribbean Communities Development Trust whose role would be to oversee and manage assets for the whole community. In positively supporting these proposals, we of the African and Caribbean communities would seek to work creatively and collaboratively with the local authority, using the principles of “Total Place” to shape new policies that would respond to, embrace and expand the contributions of the African and Caribbean communities. Anything less than a positive response is likely to trigger a reduction in the number of those, mainly experienced, BME professionals actively involved in constructive community engagement. We anticipate that what will then follow are the dismantling of the remaining assets and other components of an already weakened infrastructure in the mainly disadvantaged and deprived African and Caribbean communities of Birmingham. We anticipate that if action is not taken swiftly, rebuilding an active contribution from African and Caribbean citizens who are becoming increasingly disillusioned and disengaged will become increasingly remote with unpredictable consequences. September 2011 Written evidence submitted by Amnesty International UK and the Omega Research Foundation 1. Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognised human rights to be respected and protected. Our vision is for every person to enjoy all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. Our mission is to conduct research and take action to prevent and end grave abuses of all rights—civil, political, social, cultural and economic. From freedom of expression and association to physical and mental integrity, from discrimination to the right to shelter—these rights are indivisible. 2. The Omega Research Foundation (Omega) is an independent, UK based research organisation which provides rigorous, objective, evidence-based research on the manufacture, trade, and use of military, security and police (MSP) technologies. We currently receive funding from the European Commission for a project on the appropriate use of force and policing equipment by law enforcement agencies in a range of situations, including crowd control. This short submission draws on the interim findings of this project. 3. We address several aspects of the inquiry, namely: the techniques used by the police to address the disturbances, particularly deployment of non-standard techniques; the legislation regulating normal policing processes and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)/National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) public order guidance. We make recommendations concerning: — The process for approving new weaponry, and the degree of discretion afforded to Police Chiefs. — ACPO/NPIA guidance on Attenuating Energy Projectiles and Counter Strike (CS) Smoke. — The types of weaponry under discussion for potential police use. Non-standard Technologies: The Role of Police Chiefs 4. The discussion around, and public pressure for, the introduction of additional policing technologies to deal with the recent disturbances was intense. A You Gov poll found that 90% of those polled supported the use of water cannon, and over 70% supported the use of Taser and tear gas. 6 Against this backdrop, the 6 YouGov (2011). YouGov/The Sun Survey Results
Ev w20 Home Affairs Committee: Evidence various police forces engaged in containing the recent disturbances should be commended for handling the situation without having recourse to additional weaponry. This notwithstanding, Amnesty International UK and Omega have concerns about the use of non-standard technologies. 5. Previous evidence to this committee 7 has revealed that police chiefs have considerable discretion to select the equipment in use by their force. There is nothing in statute that specifies what the police can or cannot use. Indeed, Section 54 of the Firearms Act of 1968 enables police officers to “purchase or acquire firearms and ammunition for the public service without holding a certificate”. Statutory Guidance—the 2003 Home Office Code of Practice on Police use of Firearms and Less Lethal Weapons, sections 3.2 and 4.1— which Chief Police Officers must “have regard to”, gives them responsibility for “the acquisition of weapons requiring special authorisation for use in their force areas” and the power to decide “what types of weapons need to be available within their forces”. 6. The UK’s selection and testing process is widely regarded as one of the best in the world, with considerable technical and medical assessment. It uses a needs based, standards based process, testing technologies against operational requirements (eg for accuracy and precision) with technologies that fail to meet these standards not being authorised for use. It then subjects them to a separate medical assessment, including their impact on vulnerable population groups, before seeking Ministerial approval for their deployment. 7. Amnesty International UK and Omega are very concerned that this rigorous process, carefully developed over a number of years, can be so easily bypassed. Police chiefs have the ability to deploy equipment that may not have been given Ministerial approval, nor have passed the operational requirement test or meet the required standards of accuracy and consistency. Indeed, the equipment may not have been tested at all, nor had specific safeguards and guidance put in place for its use. 8. The deployment of the wireless electroshock projectile, the Extended Range Electro-Muscular Projectile (XREP), in the Raoul Moat case in 2010, is one incident which highlights these concerns. Testing commissioned by the UK’s own testing and selection agency, HOSDB, 8 and published in 2009, had found the XREP to be inaccurate at 20 metres and to vary considerably in the length of electric shock delivered. Whilst some rounds were “electrically dead”, others delivered an electric shock for “more than five minutes after being activated”. 9 Further testing in 2011 confirmed that the projectile was highly inaccurate, unable to hit the target at 12 metres, let alone the 30 meters advertised. 10 9. Allowing forces to use unapproved equipment asks them to make judgements on the medical and other impacts and risk of weapons that even medical specialists are sometimes hard-pushed to do. It also risks exposing officers to the potential dangers of using untried and ineffective weapons. Under these circumstances it is difficult to see how the police can discharge their legal obligation to ensure that the use of equipment is lawful, neccessary, reasonable and proportionate. — We recommend all necessary changes are put in place to ensure that Police Chiefs are only able to deploy technologies which have gone through a full testing, selection and evaluation process and received Ministerial approval. — One way of working towards this would be through a revised Code of Practice on Police Use of Firearms and Less Lethal Weapons. Consultations on revisions to the 2003 version of this Code were held in 2009. The Home Office has subsequently advised that “work on a revised version has been put on hold whilst Home Office officials work with key partners to understand how the Code’s of Practice are aligned with the onset of the Strategic Policing Requirement”. Amnesty International UK and Omega recommend that the review is restarted and these points are made explicit in the revised Code. Guidance on Electro-Shock and Distance Weapons 10. Amnesty International UK and the Omega Research Foundation agree with the Home Affairs Select Committee recommendation that “the police continue their self-imposed ban on the use of Taser in public protest situations. More generally we urge the police to reject the use of “distance weapons” in policing demonstrations. Instead of investment in expensive equipment to give the police “distance” while policing large scale protests, we suggest that the money could be better spent on training for front-line officers and in the planning of operations, removing the need for such “distance weapons”. 11. The use of electroshock devices for crowd control presents several difficulties, including; the risk of danger to officers if the device does not incapacitate or if s/he is overwhelmed by the crowd, the danger of hitting individuals other than the target, the risk of inducing panic in the crowd more generally and difficulty ensuring the timely provision of medical assistance to individuals suffering adverse consequences. 7 Home Affairs Committee (2011). Fifth Report: Police use of Taser. See, for example, Memorandum from the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Crime Prevention to the Chair, Home Office Select Committee 8 The Home Office Scientific Development Branch, now known as CAST, the Centre for Applied Science and Technology 9 Sherman, D and Bir, C (2009). A test methodology for the complete characterisation fo the Taser XREP Munition paper presented to the 2009 Ettlingen Symposium on Less Lethal Weapons. 10 Kunz, S; Graw, M Peschel, O and Grove, N (2011). “Long-distance Conducted Electrical Weapon XREP function and ballistic features” in sixth European Symposium on Non-Lethal Weapons 16–18 May 2011, Ettlingen, Germany
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