AVON & Somerset Police used force on suspects more than 50 times a day over the last 12 months, according to the constabulary’s top officer, writes Adam Postans.

Chief Constable Sarah Crew said a use of force was recorded almost 20,000 times between September 2024 and the end of August 2025.

But she said the vast majority of incidents were at the very lowest end of the scale and that officers had a duty to record whenever they used force, no matter how small.

During the monthly Police Question Time, police and crime commissioner (PCC) Clare Moody said she had received a question from a young person who asked: “Why is there police brutality towards young people?”

Chief Constable Crew replied: “Brutality or brutal is a very emotive word. That’s absolutely not what we have in mind when we’re talking about children under 18.

“The law allows us to use force when it’s reasonable and proportionate to do so but only when it’s absolutely necessary.

“When an officer uses force, whatever the circumstances, however low level, they are under a duty to record it and every police officer needs to do that.

“In the past year, September 2024 until the end of August 2025, officers have recorded force being used 19,878 times.

“When we break that down by age, where the person was under 11 years old that was recorded 44 times, so that is 0.23 per cent of the total.

“When we look at all the children from 11 to 17, a use of force was recorded 2,184 times, so that’s 11 per cent.

“Of those uses for under 18s, the vast majority of those were at the very low end of that spectrum.”

She said officers received training to understand situations from a child’s perspective when they came into contact with police and tailored their behaviour to deal with them.

The chief constable said: “Out of those 20,000, looking at all of the uses of force, we had 250 complaints.

“To break that down into under 18s, we had just 18 allegations where a complainant has been under 18.”

She said during the grilling on Monday, September 22, that investigations into half of the 250 allegations about excessive use of force had been completed and that four of those were found to be unacceptable, none of which involved a child.

Chief Constable Crew said: “Of the 18 where the complainant is under 18, 12 are still under investigation, five have been completed and they were given a closure, what we call ‘service provided was acceptable’, so we would say the use of force was reasonable in those circumstances, and one of those was withdrawn.

“It’s very important that when we’re using force of any kind against any person, a child or not, that it’s highly transparent, highly regulated, it’s recorded so there can be accountability and that the public can be sure that we’re using our powers, which they consent for us to use on their behalf, appropriately, reasonably and lawfully.”