Police High Speed Pursuits and Responses Research Paper

Police High Speed Pursuits and Responses - Research Paper Example 3). Latest court rulings, including a United States Supreme Court ruling given five years back, put off it to the enforcing officer to take the decision in high speed pursuits. As a plaintiff’s responsibility of providing evidence may be higher, such cases still carry the risk. It proves the need of a well established policy over police pursuit. A well written high-speed pursuit policy stipulates guidelines explaining what elements are critical and what are ignorable. Rules are given in written form in pursuit policies to help chasing officers to organize or quit the chase by adhering to the rules (AMIC 2-3). Recurrent fatalities in road accidents from police vehicles form the biggest single entity of deaths resulting from police action, thus, a major number of cases are referred to the IPCC in the UK. Although there has been much discussion among the surrounding communities and the police over chase incidents but level of awareness is still low to arouse debate on the issue. An analysis of the cases referred to IPCC has helped in rectifying the mistakes at policy and practice level (IPCC 1). Civilian fatalities following police related road traffic incidents - England & Wales Financial Year Pursuit related ?Emergency response 'Other incidents' ? Total fatalities ? ?2004/05 ?23 ?6 ?15 ?44 ?2005/06 ?32 ?4 ?12 ?48 ?2006/07 ?19 ?3 ?14 ?36 ?2007/08 ?17 ?2 ?5 ?24 ?2008/09 ?22 ?6 ?12 ?40 ?2009/10 ?19 3 7 29 ?2010/11 ?13 ?4 ?9 ?26 Source: Statistics for England and Wales annual reports At higher administrative level, need to revise the driver training parameters have been felt to bring down the number of road hits and injuries from accidents. Comparing the number of accidents by the public and the policemen in Britain, nothing can be said for sure, as the data in the above table indicates but subsequent improvement in controlling pursuit related accidents has been accomplished but the number of injuries to the policemen while on the roads can be critically deci sive to their performance. Adequate training to the police drivers can further control the rise in accidents, as after-effects on the health of police officers themselves could be harsh in physical terms (Fletcher 1). The aim of this research is to prove whether it is advisable to take the risks of high-speed police pursuits relatively to the rewards from them. Such pursuits are dangerous and life threatening for all concerned, and even not-aware citizens becoming sudden victims. Policies are required to be changed to control possible pursuits and the parameters employed to decide or terminate such pursuits (Player 2). High Speed Pursuit Policy The high-speed pursuit policy should help policemen in decision-making while considering various elements, such as: (a) the category of the offense; (b) the strategy of the offender's running; (c) the limit of recognizing the offender; (d) prior hints of the offender's lead direction; (e) the current expertise of other officers to nab the off ender; (f) idea of past activities of the offender; (g) the possibility that the offender is carrying weapons or may use force to escape; (h) the possibility of material loss to individuals or property caused from the pursuit; (i) the fitness of the police vehicle; consideration of the