Analysis

LONG READ: With just one per cent of cases making it to court and convictions at a historic low, some believe the crime of rape has effectively been decriminalised. Dr John Fox, a lecturer in Police Studies at the University of Portsmouth, analyses the reasons why so few cases result in a conviction.

ANALYSIS: An inquiry into the strip search of a 15-year-old Black girl by police officers at her school concluded it should never had happened. Four officers found themselves facing an investigation for gross misconduct, but National Appropriate Adult Network Chief Executive Chris Bath argues the labyrinth of legislation and Codes of Practice covering strip searches lies at the heart of the problem.

ANALYSIS: Police adoption of live facial recognition (LFR) is a controversial topic, with the profound opportunities offered by this technology balanced out by considerable risks. A recent report from Cambridge University’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy presents a highly critical view of how the police use LFR. In this article, Policing Insight’s James Sweetland presents both sides of the story.

ANALYSIS: As many as one in five of the population are estimated to be neurodivergent, a term covering more than 600 conditions; Sarah Gardner looks at some of the key challenges this presents for policing, both in terms of recruiting and supporting neurodiverse colleagues, and understanding how those conditions can affect interactions with the public.

FEATURE: This week the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation announced that the country’s terror threat level was to be reduced; Dr John Coyne, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre, warns that while the move should be welcomed, extremist ideologies still exist in Australia and will need continued careful and close monitoring to prevent any further acts of violence.

ANALYSIS: The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to bring significant changes to policing tools and techniques; Dr Jonathan Jackson and Ronald Winch of Birmingham City University argue that, as legislation lags behind the pace of technological development across society, policing needs to urgently develop and implement ethical and safe systems of governance to protect the model of policing by consent.

ANALYSIS: One of the outcomes of the pandemic has been a quiet revolution in the way people seek to report crime; a survey by technical consulting firm BMT found that the public are increasingly willing to use digital contact channels to communicate with police, but need more information about the right routes to use, and reassurances over the response they will receive, as Justice and Security Business Unit Lead Christian Ellis explains.

FEATURE: Leading police researcher Professor Tom Kirchmaier recently urged police chiefs to “rethink” their stance on double crewing to protect officers and provide a better public service, while improving response times to have a “significant” impact on detection and clearance rates, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: With the ever-increasing volume of online child sexual abuse material, identifying and removing these harmful and often horrific images will require the use of new digital tools; at the recent 24-hour Conference on Global Organized Crime, Jacques Marcoux, Director of Research and Analytics for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, outlined how Project Arachnid is delivering on this task, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

FEATURE: Australia’s Queensland Police, like many other forces around the world, deal with worrying levels of domestic violence on a daily basis, with many incidents carried out by repeat offenders; but the introduction of a simple text messaging initiative to remind those subject to protection orders about the behaviour conditions they are required to follow has seen a significant drop in repeat offences and an associated reduction in costs, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: The issue of environmental crime is complex and frequently misunderstood by wider society, with wildlife trafficking often the focus of attention, at the expense of activities such as the illegal exploitation of minerals and other natural resources; Policing Insight’s Chris Allen looks at the latest report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime on the impacts of environmental crime today, and what we may face in the future.

ANALYSIS: This month’s report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services highlighted significant issues around the vetting of police officers – both new recruits and those already in service; as HMICFRS begins publishing individual force inspections on the same topic, Policing Insight’s Graham Wettone looks at the concerns highlighted by the original report, the recommendations for improvement, and what the service should be doing to protect policing and the public against potential misconduct and corruption.

ANALYSIS: This month’s ANZPAA Conference offered another opportunity to learn more about brain fingerprinting, and the potential for its use in law enforcement investigations and deception detection; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the background to this cutting-edge technology, research on its operational performance to date, and how it could benefit policing and criminal justice systems moving forwards.

FEATURE: The challenges around tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) have been the subject of intense public, political and policing debate in recent months, following a number of high-profile incidents and alarming statistics; Policing Lecturer Dr Anna Hopkins reports on a recent Open University conference which drew together police, politicians, practitioners and academics to address some of the key issues and consider ways forward.

ANALYSIS: Three years ago, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the ambitious Uplift plan to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers by April 2023, and despite significant political upheaval since, the Government remains ‘determined’ to keep to its pledge; in the last of this current series on UK police workforce structure, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett assesses whether that target will be met, and what comes next.

LONG READ: The emergency services response to the flooding in Australia’s Northern Rivers region, which began in February and remains ongoing, has been subject to close scrutiny and two major independent inquiries; Policing Insight’s Alan Beckley examines some of the key findings and recommendations from the two inquiry reports, and considers their implications for policing in the region.

ANALYSIS: New research from the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has found that children are being seriously affected not only by violence itself, but also the fear of violence, with almost two thirds of young people changing their behaviour to protect themselves; YEF Executive Director Jon Yates believes that evidence-based approaches and partnership working can significantly improve the safety and prospects of young people.

ANALYSIS: As the conversation turns again to probable funding cuts to UK public services, Open University Visiting Fellow Justin Partridge and University of Southampton lecturer Fatema Zaghloul examine whether increased and sustained austerity will lead to a greater willingness to collaborate and assist in driving efficiencies, or if collaboration will become another casualty of austerity as hard-pressed organisations simply retrench their focus to internal matters?

ANALYSIS: In the fourth in our latest series focusing on police workforce development in England and Wales, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the unique opportunity offered by the Uplift recruitment programme to increase diversity, the relatively small change that has resulted, and the more noticeable shift in workforce profile to a service that has become younger and less experienced.

FEATURE: New Kenyan President William Ruto has already ordered a police unit suspected of extrajudicial killings to be disbanded; but East Africa crime, justice and policing specialist Professor Naomi van Stapele argues that, far from representing genuine reform, the move simply allows the new leader to bring in his own trusted officers in a country where police killings are systemic.

ANALYSIS: In this latest article in a series on 21st century community engagement, Intensive Engagement Managing Director Richard James (a former police territorial commander), Stephen Carr, Transformation Strategy Lead for the Home Office, and Police Foundation Research Director Andy Higgins build on the findings of the recent Strategic Review of Policing to explore local policing and leadership through the themes of people, problems and places.

ANALYSIS: In this third article in our latest series focusing on police workforce development in England and Wales – and with the Government and current Home Secretary Suella Braverman remaining committed to the Uplift target of 20,000 new police officers by April 2023 – Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the ‘churn’ of officers joining and leaving the service, the increasing number of resignations, and the marketplace for inter-force transfers, and considers the implications of these factors for the service.

ANALYSIS: This week’s publication of both the Crime Survey for England and Wales and the latest Police Recorded Crime (PRC) statistics offers the first comparable crime figures to before the pandemic; Meghan Elkin, joint head of crime statistics at the Office for National Statistics, explains how these latest figures can help to explain whether Covid has led to any sustained impacts on levels of crime, and how survey methods may also influence the data.

ANALYSIS: The contentious nature of policing inevitably gives rise to some complaints, and how those complaints are handled has been an issue of concern for both the public and police in the UK; in this final article in a series reviewing the police complaints process, Dr Rob Heaton and Professor Stephen Tong consider their findings so far, and point to some ways forward that could help to achieve a fair, open and more effective mechanism for dealing with misconduct.