Police taser use against children rises six-fold in London

A country-wide increase in the use of Taser stun guns on children has been reported, yet the steepest climb was in London – a rise from just nine instances in 2008 to 53 in 2013. This comes alongside the national statistics of 71 instances in 2008 rising to 323 instances in 2011.

The Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) released the statistics in their 2013 report State of Children’s Rights in England.

This news comes alongside the call from the UN Committee against Torture in May 2013 that “the law be changed to expressly prohibit their use on children” as they “expressed deep concern at the use of Tasers on children”, according to the CRAE report.

Deborah Glass, the deputy chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), had said on 10^th September 2013: “From the review we have carried out of Taser complaints and our own investigations we do have concerns about some of the ways and circumstances in which the Taser is used,” although the findings for the entire review won’t be published until March 2014. However, it is known that the IPCC is independently investigating 12 cases and supervising police investigations into a further seven cases where a Taser may have been used inappropriately.

Daisy Field