OFFICERS should be double-crewed as default when attending potentially violent incidents, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
New research focused on West Midlands Police shows that double-crewing increases detection rates by 44%, charges summonses and cautions go up by 82%, and serious officer injury rates almost drop to zero.<\/p>\n
A cost-benefit analysis also found that for every \u00a31 forces spend on double-crewing they get \u00a32.75 in return, making it a cost-effective and safer way to police.<\/p>\n
South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent agrees, saying: \u201cThe overwhelming feedback from cops is that they want to be automatically double-crewed. When officers are going out responding to 999 calls, they should be double-crewed and we will continue to push that locally, as is the national steer of the PFEW.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be sharing that information with our senior leaders to see if it can generate some wider discussions about making it mandatory. Locally there isn\u2019t much consistency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be an element of common sense for low-level matters where the risk isn\u2019t there. But the default position for response officers who are going out to domestic incidents, violent assaults and going to police pubs, they should be double-crewed. There may be an issue with the number of officers available, but that\u2019s an argument to increase numbers, not an argument to not do double-crewing.\u201d<\/p>\n