HIGHER sentencing for those who assault police officers is welcome \u2013 but it may be more important to look at minimum sentencing if to properly deter those who assault officers, says South Yorkshire Police Federation.<\/p>\n
Government statistics show that 30,000 police officers were assaulted on duty in England and Wales in 2018\/19.<\/p>\n
However, despite the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018, which gives the judicial system an option of a maximum 12-month custodial sentence, just 1,000 of the 12,600 people convicted of assaulting a police officer went to jail last year.<\/p>\n
Those that did go to jail received an average sentence of just two months. Home Secretary Priti Patel has now pledged to get tough on the issue.<\/p>\n
Steve Kent, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman has said that he welcomes more sentencing powers, but that he would like to see a minimum sentence for any assault involving a police officer.<\/p>\n
He said \u201cWhat we\u2019re finding at the minute is that people aren\u2019t getting the maximum sentence anyway.\u00a0 So, what we should be really considering is a minimum sentence for any kind of assault that involves an injury to a police officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, if we had that minimum sentence, and it becomes a properly aggregating factor then we\u2019ll see that the sentences will be dished out for the lower level stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cA maximum sentence will only ever be used for the extreme levels of assaults against police \u2013 which I support \u2013 but let\u2019s get that base level up first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve said that there was a recent case in South Yorkshire Police where someone got 44 weeks for badly assaulting female police officers, but that he would like to see that be a minimum of a year.<\/p>\n
He added \u201c If the incident is \u2013 and technically speaking \u2013 classed as anything but common assault then there should be automatic imprisonment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the common sense world, if someone just pushes a police officer on the arm, we\u2019re not necessarily going to expect them to go to prison for what is still technically assault. But, if officers end up with black eyes, lose teeth, broken noses, cuts, bites, they\u2019re the type of offences then for me they should be ending up in prison as an automatic.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n