Arbitrary Response Targets Could Endanger Police And Public

The introduction of targets for emergency response times could endanger police officers and the public, and leave police officers facing prosecution when things go wrong, South Yorkshire Police Federation has warned.

Police forces in England and Wales will be expected to arrive at crime scenes within 15 minutes in urban areas and 20 minutes in the countryside while attending serious crimes, the Home Office said in its recent policing white paper.

But Steve Kent, Federation Chair, said recent history has shown that targets do not improve policing, and that it can actually have the opposite effect.

He explained: “I have a major issue with targets in policing, whether they be for response times, for arrests, or for stop and search.

“Targets drive unethical behaviour and all this will do is send us back to a culture which we’ve suffered in this force previously, where people have been told to drive faster to incidents. This is completely unlawful and puts officers and the public at risk.”

Steve warned that police officers already get to emergency incidents as fast as they possibly can, and that any delays are caused by under-resourcing – not individual officers’ actions.

He said: “We’ve got to stop misleading the public on this and give them real expectations about how quickly the police will get to them. Officers cannot be ordered to use blue lights – they have to drive as they see fit.

“Yes, we need to get to emergencies quickly. Every officer knows that. But we also have to do our job properly. If an officer gets into an accident because he or she is trying to get there within a target time, then they’re going to face prosecution.”