The number of complaints against Sussex Police has been going up for the last two years – reaching 900 in 2013/14.
Yet it is doing better than most forces – 216 allegations per 1,000 employees compared to 251 for all forces in England and Wales.
Whether we are getting better at complaining or the police force is getting worse, it’s difficult to say.
Yet surely the most important information in the new data is what it says about how complaints are handled.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission upheld more than half (56%) of appeals from residents about the way Sussex Police handled their complaint.
It upheld 67% of 21 appeals where people were unhappy the force had not recorded their complaint and it upheld 56% of 80 appeals from people unhappy with how the force investigated their complaint.
It all makes a strong case for the IPCC.
But it also means a lot of people with a valid point getting effectively brushed off by the police.
That means too many people having a bad experience with the police, which cannot be good for any of us.
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