Is There A Link Between Assaults On Officers And Leaving The Service?

It is “a massive concern” that 80% of serious assaults on officers occur when they’re in their first five years of service, the Chair of Hampshire Police Federation has said, adding it may be connected to the amount of people leaving the police.

Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield said that the police service needed to examine the major issue of police recruitment and retention, and more support should be given to assaulted officers.

She was speaking after Andy Rhodes, Service Director of Oscar Kilo, said the service needed to investigate whether there was a correlation between officer assaults and the number of people leaving the service in their first five years.

Andy told the Superintendents’ Association conference: “Government statistics reveal there are an average of 125 assaults on police officers in England and Wales every single day. There were in total 45,907 assaults on police officers last year.”

Andy said that a staggering 80% of serious assaults on officers happen when they are in their first five years of service and that assault data was “highly relevant” to why officers left policing early – the figure is now at 6.6%, up from 3% before the pandemic.

Zoë said: “This is a massive concern and links in to there not being enough officers. We need to look at the whole recruitment and retention issue.

“I think this links, not just to assaults on police officers, but also the number of traumatic incidents they go to. It’s so much higher now than when I first joined.

“And what support is there in place for officers who are assaulted to help them deal with it and to help them stay in the organisation?

“We started the seven-point plan for assaults on officers in Hampshire, and it’s now referred to as Op Hampshire and is compulsory for forces to implement it, but there will still be different forces doing less around it than others. It shouldn’t be a postcode lottery of how much support you get from your force when you’re assaulted, it should be standard, across the board.”