Police federation insist double-crewing vital for safety and morale

New research focused on West Midlands Police shows that double-crewing increases detection rates by 44 per cent, charges summonses and cautions go up by 82 per cent, and serious officer injury rates almost drop to zero. In addition, a cost-benefit analysis found that for every £1 forces spend on double-crewing they get £2.75 in return, making it a cost-effective way to police.

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Hampshire Police Federation chair Zoë Wakefield said: ‘There’s a lot of pressure from bosses not to double-crew, so that there are more vehicles to go to the jobs. But it doesn’t really work like that, because if it’s a serious job you end up just sending two cars with two officers.

‘And then you can increase the fear of crime, because if there are two police cars and a police van outside an address, people think there must be something really serious going on. They don’t realise that it’s just two police officers dealing with a job and one that’s come in a van to pick up the suspect.’

She added that double-crewing helped policing in a number of ways: ‘There’s so much more to being double-crewed than being able to just go to the job. When you come away from the job you’ve got someone to talk to, to decompress with, to let off steam if you need to. You’ve got some company.

‘It actually means you’re more effective if you need to stop-check somebody, or if you come across something suspicious.’