FEATURE: People exploited by the human trafficking and organ trafficking industries are often regarded as victims of organised crime, but the reality can be much more complex; Policing Insight’s Keith Potter looks at examples of poverty-driven trafficking and victims becoming victimisers, which were highlighted during the recent 24-hour Conference on Global Organised Crime.
FEATURE: With the increasing range, reach and frequency of international crises and disasters, countries around the world are looking to ensure the right measures are in place to strengthen their resilience; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the key themes and principles of the latest UK Resilience Framework, and the emphasis on local responses to national threats and events.
ANALYSIS: A new joint report from Europol and the American Drug Enforcement Administration explores the involvement of Mexican cartels in the European drug trade; Policing Insight’s Chris Allen looks at the roles taken on by cartel members, the particular drug markets they are working in, and what this may mean for future drug trends across Europe.
FEATURE: From criminal networks creating their own welfare systems, to new financial scams, corruption, and transnational counterfeiting of PPE on a huge scale, Covid led to new opportunities and ways of working for organised crime (OC); Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons looks at some of the criminal tools and techniques adopted by OC in response to the pandemic, highlighted during the 24-hour Conference on Global Organised Crime.
FEATURE: Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley last week unveiled the outlines of a turnaround plan for the force based on “precise community crime fighting”, a new performance framework and new professional values; but just days after the ambitious plan was announced, the force was facing fresh controversy with the conviction of serial rapist PC David Carrick highlighting concerns over vetting, conduct and complaints, as Policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.
ANALYSIS: Public trust in policing is essential in maintaining police legitimacy and effectiveness, and people’s perceptions of police are a valuable indicator of levels of community trust and confidence; Dr Rasha Kassem and Dr Ian Kennedy of the Open University explore some of the factors influencing negative and positive perceptions of policing, many of which were highlighted during a recent University of Oxford public engagement event.
16th January 2023
ANALYSIS: A key element of many of the 2020 policing protests was the call to defund police and reinvest more heavily in community spending and solutions, but two years on, policing budgets have continued to increase across Canada; Concordia University Associate Professor Ted Rutland looks at how and why spending has increased, and what progress has been made on investing in non-police responses.
FEATURE: Alongside war crimes and the trafficking of vulnerable refugees, the criminal impact of the war in Ukraine includes the manipulation of information for both political and criminal gain; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the efforts underway to better understand and counteract such attempts, which will have implications for policing and community safety.
FEATURE: A collaborative project between Victoria Police and the state’s Youth Support and Advocacy Service has led to a reduction in offending, improved outcomes and services for young people, and stronger alliances between the two professions, as Policing Insight Editor Keith Potter reports.
FEATURE: Hot-spot policing is widely regarded as a high-profile success of evidence-based policing; but recent trials in London suggest that cities which are already strongly policed see little impact on crime figures from adopting a hot-spot approach, as Policing Insight Contributing Editor Sarah Gibbons reports.
ANALYSIS: A new joint investigation into the police response to ethnic minority victims of sexual abuse who may be at risk of honour-based abuse has found that inadequate ethnicity recording of victims has become an “intolerable problem”, while a lack of cultural understanding and awareness among police officers and staff has left victims facing “unacceptable” further risks, as Policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.
ANALYSIS: Cybersecurity is a critical part of the delivery of public services, with increasingly sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals using bait attacks and other new techniques to target organisations; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at some of the main cybersecurity threats over the coming year, and what organisations can do to counteract them.
FEATURE: Data obtained from digital devices is now as essential to modern police investigations as DNA evidence or fingerprints; but a recent a report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services presents a damning assessment of how forces in England and Wales are handling digital forensics, and calls for new governance structures and more funding, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.
FEATURE: Another new report into stop and search has called for major reform and the launch of a taskforce on the topic; Policing Insight’s Graham Wettone looks at the findings of the report, the context and application of existing powers, and how – in the absence of any viable alternative – police and communities could help to ensure that stop and search is used effectively to detect and prevent crime and increase community safety.
ANALYSIS: The pandemic presented new challenges for policing across the world, along with valuable lessons around the response; latest research by Dr Manja Nikolovska and Professor Shane D Johnson of the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL reveals what law enforcement stakeholders thought worked well in relation to Covid-19 (and what didn’t), and how these might shape the response to future threats such as climate change and the technological advances of crime.
FEATURE: Vulnerable members of the community experiencing mental health challenges account for a significant proportion of repeat callers to the police and other services; but Occupational Therapy Degree student Bridget Townsend believes a pilot project in which occupational therapists accompany police officers in response to those repeat callers could improve the service to individuals while reducing the resource burden on policing.
26th December 2022
ANALYSIS: New research by Dr Jens Binder of Nottingham Trent University and Dr Chris Baker-Beall of Bournemouth University has found that terrorism radicalisation now takes place predominantly online, and that those recruited without face-to-face interaction are less likely to carry out violent attacks – but there is still a thin line between online only activity and mixed radicalisation processes, so internet extremism must still be taken seriously.
ANALYSIS: With inspectorate reports highlighting concerns over the use of anti-rip clothing in police custody, the Independent Custody Visiting Association (ICVA) recently undertook a pilot project with Dyfed Powys Police to improve the monitoring, recording and risk assessments around the use of such clothing, with a long-term aim of ending the measure altogether, as ICVA Interim Chief Executive Sherry Ralph explains.
FEATURE: Despite several examples of terrorist attacks being livestreamed and online games being used to spread extreme propaganda and groom young fanatics, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth warns that the full extent of the terrorist use of the internet remains poorly understood by many frontline practitioners, and a multi-faceted, holistic approach is essential to tackle the threat.
FEATURE: A Northamptonshire initiative has seen growing numbers of community carers trained to recognise the dangers of doorstep scams and prevent their elderly clients from becoming victims of fraud, burglaries and other opportunist crimes, as Policing Insight Contributing Editor Sarah Gibbons reports.
FEATURE: A new review by the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody has called for closer partnerships between policing, health and other criminal justice agencies to address mental health issues and help to prevent deaths in custody as well as suicides after release from police custody, as Policing Insight Contributing Editor Sarah Gibbons reports.
ANALYSIS: Senior UK police chiefs met with the Prime Minister and Home Secretary earlier this month to discuss the criminal activism in some recent protests, with Mr Sunak pledging to give police “whatever they need” in relation to additional powers; but Policing Insight’s Graham Wettone, a subject matter expert on public order policing and protest groups, believes more effective use of existing legislation, together with a stronger response from the criminal justice system, could bring greater benefits than new laws.
FEATURE: ‘Hybrid’ threats, which aim to exploit a country’s vulnerability by undermining fundamental democratic values and liberties, look set to pose a growing challenge to both society and law enforcement, yet rarely receive a policing focus; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at EU collaborative attempts to address those threats.
FEATURE: With county lines drug trafficking increasingly recognised and understood across the UK, police still face the conundrum of whether children and young people involved in these crimes should be treated as offenders, victims, or both; Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports on a session from the recent 24hr Conference on Global Organized Crime in which Trilateral Research’s Jana-Isabelle Dilger presented guidance for frontline officers making these tough calls.
