The Global Collaboration of Evidence Based Policing 2024 kicks off in Melbourne, with a two-day conference: 2nd-4th September: ‘What Works in Policing for Community Safety and Our People’ followed by symposiums focused on ‘Gender Diversity’ and ‘Youth Crime and Gangs’.
The Australasian event is followed by the UK Society of Evidence Based Policing annual conference: ‘What Works for the Frontline’ hosted at the University of Cambridge, 11th-12th September. With a strong line up of local, international and police practitioner speakers, and a sharp focus on collaboration and enabling the frontline, the two events will generate hours of practical insights into ‘what works’.
This interview series is enabled by support from the Police Foundation
R. Mark Evans OBE, spoke with the President of the Australia New Zealand Society of Evidence Based Policing (ANZSEBP), and the UK Chair of the Society of Evidence Based Policing (SEBP), about their hopes and expectations for this year’s events. And why policing practitioners, and all those with an interest in promoting more effective policing, should sign-up to attend.
David Cowan, ANZSEBP President David Cowan presents the Australasian conference
This is a conference for police – to bring innovations they are leading on the frontline and share that.
The themes of the conference are:
- managing demand
- what works in creating gender diversity
- what works in health and wellbeing, recruitment and retention
- counterterrorism risk
- family violence.
We’ve got two days of our What Works? conference. And then on the third day, we have two symposiums, a youth crime and gang symposium with some amazing speakers. And at the same time, we have a gender diversity in policing symposium.
We’ve got some fantastic international speakers coming from the UK and the US.
We’ve got David Kennedy, who has led major youth gangs initiatives in the US, Operation Ceasefire, the Boston Gun Control Experiment. He is a wealth of knowledge around youth gangs and crime.
We’ve got Jason Potts from Las Vegas and Alex Murray from the UK. Both of them have led some really interesting work on artificial intelligence.
We’ve got Maureen Mcgeogh coming who is a powerhouse on gender diversity.
It’s going to be an amazing conference and we’re being hosted by KPMG Australia in a beautiful facility, and we want police there.
We’ve got the ability for police staff to deliver short shots. They are just 10-minute presentations for police to share some of the good work that they’re doing.
You should sign up for the conference because there is no other conference that brings together the front line from constables, senior constables, analysts, detectives, inspectors who are leading change in their area, superintendents and ACs right up to the top”
Dave Cowan
President ANZSEBP
We expect there will be police from every jurisdiction across Australia and police from New Zealand attending. And we’re very fortunate that Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police are hosting this event for us as our host sponsors. And we also have ACWAP [Australasian Council of Women and Policing] and the Australian Institute of Criminology supporting us with our symposiums.
You will be inspired by what you hear about what is going on across policing across Australia and New Zealand. It’s a great conference.
If you come to this conference and can’t take away something that is relevant to your environment, I would be very surprised. In fact, you will take away many ideas that will inspire you to lead change in your organization and for community safety. And that’s what it’s all about”.
ANZSEBP program is available here.
You can register for the ANZSEBP Melbourne event here.
SEBP Chair Alex Murray OBE presents the UK conference
This is a global collaboration. It starts in Melbourne a week before and then it comes to UK 11th and 12th of September.
It’s at Cambridge University and it’s in partnership with the Youth Endowment Foundation, which is an evidence -based sort of organisation that seeks to bring youth violence down.
The whole point of the Societies of Evidence based policing in Australia, New Zealand, across the world, UK, is to use, produce, communicate evidence. You know better than me Mark, that there are hundreds of NGOs, organisations, pressure groups, all trying to influence policing. This is, I think, is the only one that’s inside policing trying to professionalise”
Alex Murray OBE
Chair SEBP
I’m really excited about it, a lot of capacity, over 200 people. It’s going to be filmed. It has all the accoutrements that Cambridge brings, you know, the pretty canals and lovely buildings. But ultimately, it’s going to be full of practitioners and professionals who are talking about how evidence -based practice has had a key impact in a number of areas from violence against women and girls, some really nice research, through to how you use behavioral science in cybercrime, through to romance fraud.
And I think it’s really interesting how evidence -based practices moving into the world of serious organized crime, through to some policy issues like in the UK we call it “Right Care, Right Person” which is when a call comes through to the call operators, much more diversion is taking place in the UK. This is not a police incident, we’re not going to deal with this. And how do you evaluate that effectively? Through to some things like leadership. So I’m really excited about it and already people are booking on.
The beauty of SEBP is, you know, it’s open to police officers. We don’t have like a big international speaker on the 11th and 12th. We have got some of your colleagues coming over from Australia and New Zealand, which I’m really excited about to talk about some of the great stuff that’s going on in Australia and New Zealand.
What I’m really excited about is Amanda Pearson, who’s the chief of Dorset, who’s taken the rapid video response idea for domestic abuse that Stacey Rothwell pioneered and has applied it to all sorts of other policing interventions. And, you know, I think we’re beginning to see the early dawn of RVR across UK policing and of course done in an evidence -based way where you can test and control. So again, you know, how you respond to the public is filled with ideology, isn’t it? And people with opinion. This is the evidence of, okay, is this effective? So that’s one of our openers and I think it’s really exciting.
This is definitely for police officers, for police staff and academics to come along because they’re key partners, but it’s not for specialists”
Alex Murray OBE
Chair SEBP
The whole idea is you come in, you hear some brilliant ideas, you think, well, I’m going to have a go at that back in my force. It’s not strategic and we’ve never made it strategic. You know, we don’t bring in senior, senior leaders who can talk about governance. We talk about things that tactically impact on the communities.
I’d sign up for the conference for a number of areas.
One, because you love policing and you want to make it better and you want to change it. Two, because you are curious as an individual and you’ll be fascinated about what works and what doesn’t work. Three, because in this case Cambridge is just a bit lovely. And Four, it’s great to network with people and professionals across many agencies, different continents and some of those specialists you’ve spoken about where you can really learn something different.
I’m most looking forward to hearing all the speakers and having myself challenged by some of my presumptions not bearing fruit, I think.
You can find out more about the SEBP conference and register here
