Safeguards needed over police use of Harassment Warnings
8 March 2015
Home Affairs Committee publishes its report on Police Information Notices (PINs) on 8 March 2015.
Findings
Non-collection of data
Data on PINs issued by police services in England and Wales are not collected centrally and are owned by the individual police force that issued the notice. In the past year, around 900 PINs were issued in Greater Manchester, 1,500 in Sussex, and 2,900 in Thames Valley.
Improving training on PINs
It is vital that police forces provide further training to officers on the appropriate use of PINs, to ensure that they are used in conjunction with good risk assessment and sufficient investigation. This should highlight in particular that the use of a PIN is generally not appropriate where an investigation has established evidence of a course of conduct. Remedial courses should also be given to police officers who have used PINs inappropriately.
Right to appeal a PIN
The intended recipient of a PIN should at least be given the opportunity to give their account of the situation before a police decision is made on the issuance of a PIN. This is not happening in many cases at the moment. Each police force should provide details of the complaints process to recipients alongside the original PIN.
Sharing information on PINs
Each force should publish the number of PINs issued on their websites on a monthly basis. The Home Office should collate and publish annual data about the number of PINs issued by each force, including the number of cases in which repeat victimisation was reported following the issuing of a PIN, and the number of prosecutions that followed. This will enable Chief Constables to see how their force compares to other forces.
Chair's comments
Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP, Chairman of the Committee, said:
"Tens of thousands of PINs are issued by the police every year. Although a useful tool for stopping harassment, meeting the needs of the victim and addressing problematic behaviour, there is a clear danger that they may be used inappropriately if they are not done in conjunction with good risk assessment and sufficient investigation. The lack of any procedure for appealing against a PIN can feel very unfair to recipients.
Police forces should provide further training to officers on the use of PINs. It is also vital that intended recipients of a PIN are given the opportunity to give their account of the situation before a police decision is made.
The failure to share information on PINs between police forces strongly undermines Chief Constables' ability to assess their force’s usage. Each force should publish the number of PINs issued on their websites on a monthly basis. The Home Office should collate and publish annual data about the number of PINs issued by each force."