FEATURE: An audit of youth offending in Queensland has revealed a 65% increase in the number of serious repeat offenders since 2018, and has highlighted the importance of government stability in responding to young offending, as well as the need for a culture change in Queensland Police Service’s approach to the issue, as crucial steps in preventing further increases, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The latest United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report highlights record levels of cannabis and cocaine use – with an accompanying rise in violence – and the increased agility of traffickers who are expanding their criminal activities into areas such as wildlife trafficking, illegal resource extraction and money laundering, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new UK report by the Society of Editors, the Crime Reporters Association and the Media Lawyers Association has called on the police and press to work on rebuilding their “broken” relationship for the benefit of transparency, trust and confidence, while also warning that social media posts which often dominate high-profile investigations and court cases are in danger of being “weaponised”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new study by the UK’s Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre suggests that when it comes to what the public want from its police service, while tackling crime is important, people are more focused on how policing is conducted and its relationships with the communities it serves, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: New research undertaken in Cleveland Police into police pursuits has highlighted how forces could target their stretched resources more effectively, and potentially improve training on local and rural roads, as well as indicating opportunities for police to work with manufacturers and other partners to make better use of technology in preventing pursuits, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: New research led by Abertay University’s Dr Ben Jones and funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research’s Future of Policing Scheme has highlighted the new challenges around retrieving fingerprints from polymer banknotes introduced in the UK in 2015, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: Military services details, favourite places, and engagement with support groups are among the details of armed forces veterans entered on a new database under the Forcer Protocol, an approach pioneered by Greater Manchester Police to improve the search outcomes for veterans reported missing, as GMP’s Chief Inspector Mark Mangnall explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

INTERVIEW: Having had her own battles with anxiety and mental health, Police Scotland’s Sgt Laura Gibson embarked on a Churchill Fellowship study to explore the efforts made by law enforcement agencies in the US to better prepare recruits for the psychological impact of the job, as well as to understand more about why officers do take their own lives – lessons she believes could have real benefits in the UK, as she told Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

FEATURE: A new report from the Childlight campaign group has highlighted the staggering scale of online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) – with estimates that at least 300 million children a year are victims – and has urged governments, health experts and law enforcement to tackle OCSEA as “a global health pandemic”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: A new report from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties claims that Ireland’s An Garda Síochána has yet to make significant progress on addressing a number of human rights concerns highlighted six years ago; but the force has strenuously defended its approach, pointing to a number of developments around cultural awareness, community and diversity as evidence that human rights remain at the heart of the Garda’s role, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: An 18-month sleep, fatigue and recovery biometrics pilot programme run in Merseyside Police by the UK’s National Police Wellbeing Service and Liverpool John Moore’s University has received funding to undertake an evaluation of the benefits of wearable technology, with a view to rolling out a toolkit across the service, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

LONG READ: The response to those in mental health crisis has been a major concern for many in policing, with the growing view that uniformed officers are not the most appropriate to deploy to many mental health-related calls; as UK policing continues to adopt the Right Care, Right Person approach, Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons takes a closer look at efforts by police forces in Australia and New Zealand to address the challenge.

ANALYSIS: Europol has identified 821 criminal networks with 25,000 members from 112 different nationalities which carry the biggest threat both inside the EU and internationally – based on the fact they are agile, borderless, controlling and destructive – and has called for “a culture of proactive international police co-operation” to tackle the threat, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new series of online ‘wellness cafés’ organised by the Recruitment, Retention and Wellbeing of Investigators sub-group of the National Police Chiefs’ Council is offering wellbeing support to secondary investigators and analysts at risk of traumatic stress and burnout because of the material they handle; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to initiative leader Dr Fazeelat Duran and fellow researcher Dr Amy Burrell about the significant and often overlooked risks facing staff.

FEATURE: A review of the handling of sexual assault cases by Australian Capital Territory Policing (ACT) – undertaken in response to a previous 2021 report highlighting concerns – has called for the introduction of victim-survivor advocates to reduce attrition rates, improved communications, and updates to police training, policies and practices, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The latest snapshot report from the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission – the independent oversight body for Australia's Victoria Police – has highlighted a dramatic increase in misconduct cases, with predatory behaviour by officers, the misuse of social media, and ‘reach back’ by ex-employees exploiting previous working relationships among the key concerns, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: A new report from the UK’s National Rural Crime Network has highlighted the role of organised crime in many of the machinery thefts devastating farming communities; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to Northumbria Police Superintendent Andy Huddlestone, head of the National Rural Crime Unit, about the need for better data sharing, more resources, and greater prioritisation by forces to tackle a growing crime trend.

FEATURE: The Annual Report of Canada’s Edmonton Police Service has highlighted a range of measures including stronger community partnerships, diverting young people away from crime, and a clearer focus on addressing offenders’ “criminogenic risks and needs” as among the key steps to improving public confidence in the Service despite concerning trends on crime and violence, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: New research by community safety professional Abu Ullah into the incidence of violence against women and girls in the London Borough of Sutton has highlighted the need for an evidence-based approach targeting hotspots to gain the most effective outcomes from overstretched police resources and reduce the threat to females, as he explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: A long-awaited review of police resources and policing in Australia’s Northern Territory has called for an increase in officer numbers, a building programme for remote facilities, better resource management and a fatigue management plan for officers, after what review author and former NTPF officer Vince Kelly described as a “decade-long period of organisational trauma”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: As part of a wider initiative to tackle violence in the night-time economy, West Yorkshire Police has used targeted social media campaigns appearing on mobile devices, with impressive results; as other forces look to learn from West Yorkshire’s success, Ch Insp James Kitchen spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the thinking behind the project, and how similar approaches could offer potential in tackling other challenges.

INTERVIEW: Victoria Police Detective Sergeant Peter Romanis believes that ‘compassion fatigue’ – a combination of accumulated secondary traumatic stress and burnout – poses the most significant threat to the mental health of emergency services workers, and hope a new report detailing the findings of his research into the issue will prove beneficial to officers and staff, as he explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

INNOVATION: A new digital notebook app being rolled out across NZ Police – the latest step towards Commissioner Andrew Coster’s goal of a fully digitalised case environment – offers a real-time facility with clear time and date stamps, improved case management, and transparent audit trail to generate greater confidence in the criminal justice process, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: This month Avon and Somerset Police became the first UK force to launch an advocacy service for victims and witnesses of sexual misconduct within the workplace; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to Vicki Moore, the force’s first Sexual Misconduct Liaison Officer, about the support that will be available to those reporting misconduct, the benefits to public trust and confidence, and the potential to expand the service to more issues.