Assaults on police officers: A comparison between England and Wales and New Zealand from 2015 to 2022
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14613557231218810 |
| Author | Garth den Heyer |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
Assaults on police officers: A comparison
between England and Wales and
New Zealand from 2015 to 2022
Garth den Heyer
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, USA
Abstract
This research discussed in this article examined assaults on police officers in England and Wales and in New Zealand
between 2015 and 2022. Although different sources of data were used to examine the number of assaults on police offi-
cers in the three countries, it was found that the number of assaults on police officers in England and Wales and in New
Zealand increased during this period. England and Wales experienced a 56% increase in the number of assaults on police
officers, while the New Zealand Police experienced a 41% increase. Using the population of each country as a basis there
was an increase in the number of assaults of more than 16% in New Zealand and more than 63% in England and Wales.
The main limitation of the research was that the information that was available lacked detail, and this would limit the
development of policy to minimize the threat to police officers of being assaulted.
Keywords
Assaults on police, England and Wales, New Zealand, police officer wellbeing, crime
Submitted 22 Aug 2023, Revise received 18 Sep 2023, accepted 20 Nov 2023
Introduction
The role of a police officer is considered to be a dangerous
one. The danger, according to some researchers, arises as a
result of the violent assaults that police officers often
experience (Covington, 2010; Tuttle, 2019). The majority
of police interactions with the public, however, will not
result in the assault of a police officer, but some interactions
with individuals or groups of people can place a police
officer in a situation in which there is an increased risk
of being assaulted (L Johnson, 2019; Redman, 2018;
S Wilson and Zhao, 2008). It is the potential of being vio-
lently attacked and the unpredictability of such attacks that
differentiates the working environment of a police officer
from that of other occupations (L Johnson, 2019).
Assaults against the police represent an ongoing and
serious problem for police forces around the world, with
the number of assaults on police officers increasing signifi-
cantly in many countries in recent years. In England and
Wales, there were 36,969 assaults on police officers in
2021, equivalent to 101 assaults occurring every day
(Thompson, 2021). This figure means that there was a
21% increase in assaults without injury on a police con-
stable in 2021 compared with 2020, and a 6.3% increase
in the number of assaults on police officers in 2020 com-
pared with 2019 (McKenzie, 2021; United Kingdom
Home Office, 2022). There was also a 1.2% increase in
the number of assaults that resulted in injury in 2021 com-
pared with 2020 (United Kingdom Home Office, 2022).
The rise in the number of assaults on a police officer
between 2020 and 2021 meant that the five-year average
had increased by 18% (McKenzie, 2021). Similarly, the
National Police Chiefs Council (2021), claimed that there
had been a 26% increase in assaults carried out on emer-
gency workers in 2020 compared with the number that
took place in 2019.
Corresponding author:
Garth den Heyer, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona
State University, 411 N Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Email: garth.den.heyer@gmail.com
Original Research Article
International Journal of
Police Science & Management
2024, Vol. 26(2) 211–225
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14613557231218810
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