West Mercia Police initiative working to address abuse directed towards female runners
The force has held its latest operation as part of the Jog On scheme which aims to clamp down on the issue
West Mercia Police is continuing its focus on tackling harassment aimed at female runners by holding its latest operation as part of a national campaign to clamp down on it.
The force started to roll-out the 'Jog On' initiative earlier this year which had already been used elsewhere in the country and was set-up to address unwanted behaviour that includes the likes of catcalling and horn beeping.
It sees female officers in plain clothes running along with male colleagues, and if at any point during the time they are out they are subjected to harassment, they will then contact a support crew who will arrive and step in to deal with it.
Causing harassment, alarm or distress based upon a person’s sex or presumed sex is now an aggravating offence following changes made to the Public Order Act this April, which could see a sentence of up to two years handed by the courts.
The most recent operation by West Mercia Police took place in Kidderminster yesterday (14 July) and saw no incidents reported, taking the full total of the number of them held so far up to six, with harassing behaviour identified on three of them.
Inspector Liz Warner has helped with the launch, she said: "It’s very much perceived that women should just put up with these behaviours and be complimented by these behaviours, but when women go out for a run they're not doing it for attention on their body.
"They're not doing it to try and get sexualised behaviour or even physically assaulted, women are choosing to go out running for the same reason that men are choosing to go out running, we want to keep fit, we want to look after our mental health.
"Ideally for 30 minutes, we want to put our music in our ears and just go out and enjoy the outside space and not have the mental load of constantly thinking about what am I wearing? Who am I telling? Is it too dark? Is it the wrong time of day? We just want to run."
Previous Research
It was last year when a University of Worcester study shone a spotlight on the extent of the harassment some runners have faced.
The Running Free, Running Safe survey heard from 101 runners, 61 women and 40 men, with more than half of those reporting experiencing harassment and abuse while out running, the vast majority being female.
It found the abuse most common being directed at women took the form of men shouting obscene and sexualised remarks or comments from vehicles and the shouted abuse was often about the victims’ appearance.
A previous survey by Runner's World in 2021 also revealed 60% of female runners it had spoken to had been harassed while running.
Since the data was released, the university has continued its work exploring behaviours towards female runners through the Run Safe project, which has been funded by the office for the police and crime commissioner for West Mercia.
Principal investigator and senior lecturer in forensic psychology, Dr Gill Harrop, who has joined police on these operations, said: "The main sort of thrust of the project is to try and understand what do we have to do for people who are engaging in that behaviour to see it as harmful, to recognise it as harmful enough to stop it.
"It's also though for those people who would never dream of behaving that way themselves who perhaps don't recognise that it is happening to female runners, what can they do to be part of that kind of positive culture for saying, actually, I'm going to tackle it, I'm going to stop it.
"What we want to really emphasise with this project is the catcalling, the horn beeping, the verbal abuse, someone standing in the way of a woman jogging in the street so she has to kind of move around and change her position, all of those things causing harm.
"It's about recognising them as being harmful and recognising that we actually have to start challenging it."
Deputy police and crime commissioner for West Mercia, Marc Bayliss, added: "I'm so disappointed that this is still far too common in our society, this behaviour is totally unacceptable.
"This is part of that broader sweep of policies which we're trying to make and support so that women and girls are safe to go about and enjoy their lives without fear and without intimidation."
The force confirmed there is plans for the initiative to be rolled out more widely across the West Mercia Police force area in the coming months.