“Seventy-five percent of misconduct hearings end in dismissal,” Alan Goodwin who is Deputy Chief Constable of ACPO’s national policing lead for complaints and misconduct said, underlining that police forces across the United Kingdom “receive approximately 30,000 complaints per year against officers, of which 1,000 per year relate to allegations of racism.”
According to Goodwin, most complains come to APCO from members of the public. He assured that all allegations are recorded and investigated thoroughly, however “not every allegation recorded means that an offence has taken place, but all allegations are subject to a full investigation to ascertain that one way or the other.”
The Deputy Chief Constable of the national policing lead for complaints and misconduct underlined that upholding an allegation “can result in any one of a number of outcomes along a spectrum of severity, ranging from management advice for minor breaches to a disciplinary process for misconduct or gross misconduct where, for instance, overt and intentional discriminatory behavior on the part of the officer accused can be proven.”
According to the UK Home Office’s statistics, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of complaints against British police – from 22,898 in 2004-2005 to 34,863 in 2013-2014.
The Association of Chief Police Officers is not a police force and is not involved in the investigation of crimes. APCO unites the expertise and experience of chief police officers from across the United Kingdom, providing a platform to share ideas and best practice.
