Analysis

ANALYSIS: Criminal justice stakeholders have been urged to take the opportunities offered by a new two-tier approach to out-of-court disposals as a route to cutting reoffending, reducing harm and clearing the CJS backlog – but a lot of work still needs to be done around oversight, openness and the evidence base, as Policing Insight Deputy Editor Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: Despite strong community rules and safeguards, some social media platforms remain a haven for a range of illegality, including the illicit trade in wildlife; University of Cape Town Research Associate Dr Rowan Martin, University of Oxford Senior Research Fellow Dr Amy Hinsley, and Dr Ana Nuno, Research Fellow at Nova School of Business and Economics, believe that trade can only be tackled effectively if experts, big tech and regulators adopt a united approach.

ANALYSIS: In the latest in this series on continuous professional development (CPD), Dr Nicky Miller (Director of Knowledge into Practice), Dr Emma Williams (Director of Research and Strategic Partnerships) and Research Fellow Richard Harding of the Open University’s Centre for Policing Research and Learning explore the importance of reflective practice, particularly in relation to investigations of rape and serious sexual offences.

ANALYSIS: Collaboration is increasingly the approach of public sector service delivery, yet common insights highlight that collaborative efforts face a number of challenges that can lead to failure or discontinuation; University of Southampton Lecturer Dr Fatema Zaghloul draws on her current research to explore the emerging challenges and essential elements in developing and maintaining collaborative IT/IS projects across UK police forces.

ANALYSIS: The recent siege in a synagogue in Texas highlighted once again that terrorists increasingly view places of worship as legitimate and accessible targets; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports on a new EU operational briefing published this week, providing guidance for law enforcement, faith leaders and their communities on improving protection at places of worship.

ANALYSIS: With America facing a continuing surge in violent crime, the Council on Criminal Justice established its Violent Crime Working Group, bringing together 16 leaders from law enforcement, public health, academia and community initiatives to identify solutions to the growth in violence; below is the Group’s 10-point, evidence-backed, short-term action plan to reverse the trend and promote peace in the streets.

FEATURE: The latest report on the policing of the pandemic in the UK has suggested expanding the ‘4Es’ approach to other law enforcement activities, investing the additional capability from Operation Uplift into neighbourhood policing, and improving national co-ordination and workforce planning, as some of the key lessons from Covid policing; Policing Insight Deputy Editor Sarah Gibbons takes a closer look at the report.

ANALYSIS: While banking and financial transactions move increasingly towards digital platforms, criminals are resurrecting a more traditional fraud – bank check theft – to build bitcoin profits and steal identities, as Georgia State University Criminology and Criminal Justice Professor David Maimon explains.

ANALYSIS: With online communication – and social media in particular – highlighting society’s growing prevalence of abuse and the incitement to hatred and violence, the UK’s proposed Online Safety Bill has been welcomed by many as a step towards tackling big tech’s ‘land of the lawless’; Policing Insight contributor Gareth Bryon looks at the background to the Bill, and some of the measures set to be introduced in 2022.

ANALYSIS: Politically motivated crime has been recognised as an issue needing specific attention for more than a century, but with multiple agencies now active in the sector, co-ordinating that response can be difficult; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the challenges presented by politically motivated crimes, and the importance of differentiating between extremism and terrorism.

ANALYSIS: The rapid advancement of new technology is creating a range of potential uses and applications in law enforcement settings, as well as mounting public and community concern around the ethical use of tech; in this article Inspector Carla Gilmore, Manager - Emergent Technologies for New Zealand Police, explains how the force is creating new policies and frameworks to ensure emerging technology is used safely and responsibly.

ANALYSIS: Despite increasingly sophisticated security measures, vehicle theft in the UK is back on the rise – much of it involving cars stolen by international organised crime groups; West Midlands PC Andrew Lavanchy looks at the scale and changing nature of vehicle theft, and what steps policing could take to combat the car thieves.

ANALYSIS: As the Police Foundation prepares to report next month on Phase Two of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, Research Director Andy Higgins looks back at the turbulent events of 2021 – from Covid to Clapham Common and accusations of institutional corruption – and considers what impact they may have on policing legitimacy moving forwards.

ANALYSIS: Disruption methods are vital in combatting child sexual abuse, with the potential to immediately interrupt contact between a suspect and a child, and help stop further abuse in the longer term; now new research by the UK’s Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse has highlighted the steps that can be taken to improve disruption efforts, as the Centre’s Senior Research and Evaluation Officer Dr Diana Parkinson explains.

ANALYSIS: The latest annual reports on global and European cybercrime discuss both increasingly complex as well as opportunist attacks, and highlight the performance of individual countries in safeguarding against threats; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at who is doing well, who needs to do better, and what more they could be doing.

ANALYSIS: Despite the introduction of a pandemic charging protocol in the UK, the police use of out-of-court disposals and diversion measures changed little during or after lockdown; but as well as improving reoffending outcomes, the increased use of these approaches could be crucial in cutting the significant and problematic Crown Court backlog, argues Transform Justice Director Penelope Gibbs.

LONG READ: The death of George Floyd shone the spotlight strongly on police use of force, but many police services and departments had already recognised concerns and were attempting to address the issue; however, the lack of data on the effectiveness of training in areas such as de-escalation have left it difficult to identify what works and why, as Policing Insight Contributing Editor Tina Orr-Munro reports.

ANALYSIS: Europe’s migrant crisis took a tragic turn this month, with the death of 27 people attempting to cross the Channel from France to the UK; with a significant rise in illegal EU border crossings over the past two years, the Frontex agency has found itself increasingly in the frontline of a political and humanitarian crisis, which has brought its own challenges for the organisation, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

ANALYSIS: The Biden administration’s recent ban on the use of Pegasus spyware in the US represents a strong international statement on human rights and democratic freedoms; but analyst Dr Teagan Westendorf of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute believes it raises serious questions for Australian policing, and the swathe of legislation giving law enforcement new powers to access individuals’ data in the name of tackling ‘exceptional’ or ‘unprecedented’ threats.

ANALYSIS: Approaches and attitudes towards continuing professional development (CPD) vary markedly across sectors and among employers and employees – and as a result, so do outcomes; in the second in a series of articles on CPD, Dr Paul Walley, Director of Learning at the Open University’s Centre for Policing Research and Learning, highlights some of the key elements of a successful approach, including organisational and leadership support, and consistent standards.

ANALYSIS: The introduction of body-worn cameras among US police forces and the subsequent improvement in evidential quality has helped to reduce the racial disparity in the response to complaints about police misconduct, according to new research by Professors Suat Cubukcu, Erdal Tekin, Nusret Sahin and Volkan Topalli.

ANALYSIS: The latest in a series of reports on cocaine by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has highlighted the various methods of drug production, and how a greater knowledge of the chemical processes required to manufacture street-level cocaine and its derivatives could help governments and law enforcement to tackle the global trade, as Policing Insight’s Chris Allen reports.

ANALYSIS: Last month the Australian Border Force and Australian Federal Police seized 450kgs of heroin from a shipping container in Melbourne; but the huge seizure should be seen as a sign that the approach focused on policing and criminal justice is not working, as well as an indication of the scale of the challenge facing the country’s fight against narcotics, explains Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Dr Teagan Westendorf.

ANALYSIS: With an increasingly complex crime landscape, police agencies are adopting more data-driven approaches – but what is the crime analysts’ view of the data they are working with? Saskatoon Police Service Divisional Crime Analyst John Ng* worked with Ontario Tech University Associate Professors Dr Christopher O’Connor and Dr Tyler Frederick, and PhD candidate Dallas Hill, to explore Canadian crime analysts’ perspectives on the quality, collection and use of police data.