Police used Tasers more than 30,00 times in one year - as volunteer officers are set to be armed with the stun guns.
Home Secretary Priti Patel announced at the Police Federation Conference that special constables will be allowed to carry Tasers, if authorised by their chief officers. Volunteers will receive the same Taser training as constables.
There are around 8,900 volunteer officers in England and Wales, who have the same powers and uniforms as paid officers.
In 2020/21, the most recent figures available, police officers in England and Wales used Tasers 34,429 times, up from 32,058 in 2019/20, 23,451, in 2018/19, and 16,913 in 2017/18. That was despite the pandemic and repeated lockdowns, which saw many types of crime fall.
Tasers, the brand name for Conductive Energy Devices, can fire a high-voltage shock to temporarily disable a suspect. However, in most of the uses in England and Wales (29,287) the Taser wasn’t discharged.
Non-discharge uses include 7,808 where the Taser was drawn, 3,503 where it was aimed at a person, 17,664 where it was activated to place a red targeting dot on a person, and 312 where it was arced, where the trigger is squeezed so that electric current arcs between the two contact points on the front of the Taser.
However, in 3,323 incidents in 2020/21 the Taser was discharged, including 3,247 where the Taser was fired from a distance and 76 where it was triggered in contact with a person.
Most uses of Tasers by England and Wales police involve adults. However, in 2020/21 tasers were discharged against a child aged 10 or younger, in London, once, while there were five non-discharge incidents involving children this young.
As well as this, there were 122 incidents where Tasers were discharged against children aged 11 to 17, and 2,334 where Tasers were used but not discharged.
The Home Office said that allowing special constables to carry Tasers will ensure they are not “at a disadvantage when facing an attacker wielding a knife or a marauding terrorist”.
Tasers were introduced in the UK in 2003, initially limited to firearms officers. Their use was extended in 2008, to non-firearms officers who complete the required training.
In 2009, figures show 3,128 uses of Tasers, although the figures may not be fully comparable due to changes in recording.
While the use of Tasers has been rising, crime levels have generally been falling since the late-90s. According to Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) estimates, crime was up 18% in 2021 compared with the 2019.
However, the rise was down to fraud and computer misuse offences, crime excluding these decreased by 13% compared with 2019. CSEW figures show incidents of violent crime dropped by 8% in 2021, while crimes involving knives and sharp instruments were down 4%.
Amnesty International policing expert Oliver Feeley-Sprague said: "Arming volunteer officers is a dangerous expansion of Taser use and will inevitably lead to the increased firing of Tasers.
"It's our understanding that specials will be subject to a rigorous assessment prior to being selected to undergo Taser training, but arming volunteers who receive less training overall and do less hours on the job is a worrying erosion of safeguards over Taser misuse."
The Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) carried out a review of Taser uses between 2015 and 2020, looking at incidents where they have been discharged. It found examples of Tasers being used in potentially unsafe locations or circumstances, and found evidence officers had not adequately considered the potential risk of injury to individuals.
A quarter of cases reviewed saw Taser used for compliance, and in just under a third of the cases, potential missed opportunities were identified for officers to de-escalate situations. The IOPC are concerned about the increasing use of Tasers on children (11 to 17 years), and on vulnerable people with mental health or drug and alcohol issues.
The IOPC also said concerns about race discrimination and disproportionality is one of the most
common issues raised by community groups and stakeholders in relation to Taser use. It recommended the College of Policing ensure that Taser training provides officers with an understanding of race disproportionality in Taser use.
In the IOPC review, 22 (22%) of the individuals involved in independent investigations were Black, despite Black people making up less than four per cent (4%) of the population. In the cases they reviewed, Black people were, as a proportion, less likely to have been subjected to a Taser discharge than White people but were more likely to be involved in cases where the Taser was aimed or red-dotted.
However, when Black people were subject to Taser discharges, they were more likely to be tasered for prolonged periods - 29% of White people involved in Taser discharges were subjected to continuous discharges of more than five seconds, whereas the figure was 60% for Black people.
