Opinion

OPINION: With many countries taking a new approach to legalising and regulating prostitution, the Australian state of Victoria is carrying out a full review of its sex work laws; Dr Larissa Sandy, Senior Lecturer at RMIT University, believes fully decriminalising sex work is the best way forward.

OPINION: The recent HM Inspectorate report into roads policing underlined the dangers of forces failing to prioritise road safety, with the number of fatalities and serious injuries on our roads starting to rise after years of decline; West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson – a former Transport Road Safety Minister – believes PCCs have a crucial role to play in reprioritising road safety.

INTERVIEW: AUSTRALIA: New South Wales Police Force’s latest inclusion and diversity strategy includes a career-long focus on ‘belonging and connection’; Assistant Commissioner Leanne McCusker spoke to Policing Insight Contributing Editor Tina Orr Munro about the expanded approach, and the need for clear direction, measurable outcomes, and visible change.

INTERVIEW: In the fourth in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, Policing Insight talks to President of the College and former Met Police DAC Rod Jarman – and poses five key questions on the police-public relationship – ahead of his workshops on the issue later this week.

OPINION: A digital categorisation tool is now in use in prisons in an effort to reduce crime on the wings and in wider society; but as a new Police Foundation discussion document highlights, the use of police intelligence data as the basis for prisoner ‘risk ratings’ raises concerns over accuracy, bias and transparency, as the Foundation’s Director, Rick Muir, explains.

OPINION: Since the advent of civilian rule in Nigeria, no police unit has been as severely criticised as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad; Dr Lanre Ikuteyijo explains the unit’s origin, mandate, achievements and governance, and why the recent decision to disband the squad still falls short of what needs to be done to end bad policing in the country.

OPINION: In the third in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, independent cyber and security consultant Graeme McGowan explains why the move of millions of employees to remote online working in response to the coronavirus could lead to a cybercrime legacy of that lasts long after any lockdown is over.

OPINION: The cumulative trauma suffered by police and other first responders regularly exposed to serious injury, death and immediate threat can cause high levels of PTSD as well as depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal thoughts; but as psychiatrist Professor Arash Javanbakht explains, help is out there – and first responders and their families deserve to be happy.

OPINION: The coronavirus pandemic has affected all areas of society, and all facets of policing; in the second in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, Polly Harrar, Joint Chair of the Met’s Harmful Practices Working Group and Founder of national BAME specialist charity The Sharan Project, shares her experiences of the policing response to harmful practices in the COVID-19 era.

OPINION: With the UK Government’s three-year Comprehensive Spending Review due to be announced in the next few weeks, UNISON National Officer Ben Priestley warns that an inadequate settlement could see police staffing levels fall – and the prospect of many of the additional officers promised by the Prime Minister restricted to station duties to plug the gaps.

OPINION: The coronavirus pandemic has affected all areas of society, and in turn, all facets of policing. In the first in a series of articles linked to this month's Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, former officer and current police trainer Martin Edwards shares his experiences of delivering police education in the COVID-19 era.

OPINION: This month the UK Home Secretary has instructed the HMICFRS to carry out a thematic inspection of public order policing; crowd policing expert and former police Chief Superintendent Owen West looks at current guidance on the issue, and why the political context of this decision raises concerns over the curtailing of democratic rights.

OPINION: Police in many countries have been given extraordinary powers to enforce lockdowns and tackle COVID-19; but as Dr John Coyne, Head of Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) points out, applying those powers could seriously erode the public’s trust in policing.

OPINION: Politicians and campaign groups in Australia are calling for coercive control to be criminalised as part of legislation to tackle domestic violence; but without wider consultation and consideration, the move could be counter-productive, as Professors Kate Fitz-Gibbon and Silke Meyer of Monash University, and Prof Sandra Walklate of the University of Liverpool, explain.

OPINION: Adrian Timberlake, chief technical officer at 7Technologies, examines the potential uses of new technology in border control and missing person identification, and how intelligent technologies could help to combat modern slavery.

OPINION: Diversity has long been a crucial concern in policing, but the wider criminal justice system has also come under scrutiny on the issue; Penelope Gibbs, Director of Transform Justice, believes plans to raise the retirement age for judges and magistrates could seriously damage the diversity of the judiciary and magistracy.

INTERVIEW: Dubai Police recently became the first force to win seven IACP awards in one year, recognised for its work in areas ranging from forensics and research to victims’ services and highway safety. Policing Insight spoke to Dubai Police Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, about the force’s success, its efforts to tackle challenges such as COVID-19 and transnational crime, and how high-tech and happiness are crucial elements of the force's long-term strategy.

OPINION: Congregations and places of worship from a number of religions are increasingly being targeted across Europe by a range of individuals and groups including far-right activists, extreme anarchists and libertarians; Policing Insight contributor Andrew Staniforth looks at the scale of the problem, and the European Commission response.

INTERVIEW: The COVID-19 pandemic should act as a catalyst for policing transformation, says Andrew Newsham, PwC National Lead for Policing – but greater collaboration, enhanced sharing of good practice and a clear, unified message on funding will be crucial to enable the service to meet the post-lockdown policing challenges.

OPINION: While there are undoubtedly resource and technology costs attached to the police use of social media, the contribution it can make to the delivery of policing in both physical and digital spaces needs to be understood and acknowledged, says Dr Liam Ralph, Research Fellow at Northumbria University.

OPINION: Monash University Emeritus Professor Jude McCulloch believes that a bill being considered by Australia's Victorian Parliament as part of legislation to tackle COVID-19 would provide police and other ‘authorised officers’ with unprecedented, extraordinary powers, and rely too heavily on a punitive approach to controlling the coronavirus, with limited checks and balances.

OPINION: In the third in a series of three articles on law enforcement and digital technology, Ian Stevenson, Chair of the Online Safety Technology Industry Association (OSTIA) and CEO and co-founder of Cyan Forensics, considers some of the key questions and challenges around innovation and technology in policing.

OPINION: Adrian Timberlake, chief technical officer at Seven Technologies Group, explains how facial recognition could help to reduce bias and protect innocent members of the public, while ensuring the guilty are brought to justice.

OPINION: Young people stopped by police while carrying drugs for personal use often swallow the substance to avoid additional charges, with potentially life-threatening consequences. Assistant Professor and Pediatric Emergency Physician Dr Kirstin Weerdenburg, and Kristyn Anderson, a Clinical Social Worker and PhD student, both of Dalhousie University, believe police discretion and decriminalisation are the way forward.