Analysis

FEATURE: Research recently published by The Police Foundation on the health impact of fraud is calling for a national evidence-based ‘vulnerability framework’ to ensure a more consistent approach towards victims by police forces in England and Wales, along with a multi-agency, trauma-informed service model for victims, amid concerns over the life-threatening impact of the crime and the fear that police are being left to fill the gap in specialist support, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: One in six people live with a significant disability, and evidence shows they face higher exposure to violence, exploitation, and procedural injustice; Col Dana Humaid Al Marzouqi, Director General of the International Affairs Bureau in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ministry of Interior, highlights some of the ways disabled people are targeted, and the steps that can be taken by policing to ensure inclusive security, including examples from the US, UAE and Portugal.

OPINION: While traditional policing challenges around issues such as serious violence and community harm will remain, the greatest pressures on law enforcement over the coming decade will come from hybrid and cascading risk, warns Odette Meli, former Co-ordinator of the Australian Federal Police’s Strategic Insights Centre and a Fellow of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), who argues that policing will need to integrate strategic foresight and interoperability if it is to maintain legitimacy.

FEATURE: Ireland’s Policing and Community Safety Authority, the oversight body established in April last year, has set out new Policing Priorities for An Garda Síochána, focusing on working in partnership to meet community needs, providing a consistent, supportive and quality service, and enabling the frontline, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: A recent evaluation of the Serious Violence Duty – introduced in England and Wales under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 – has underlined the importance of data sharing and the key role of analysis in supporting inter-agency collaboration and the implementation of a ‘whole-system’ approach to tackling serious violence, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: Following several reviews and inquiries examining the way policing in England and Wales communicates with the public, the College of Policing has published updated authorised professional practice (APP) for media and communications, with the aim of bring greater clarity; Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend, a subject matter expert in communication and community engagement, explores the key measures highlighted in the guidance, and shares College CEO Sir Andy Marsh’s views on what the APP is intended to achieve.

ANALYSIS: A report from the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre is calling for a more consistent police use of out-of-court resolutions (OoCRs) in the UK, after researchers found that the approach was much more likely to be used with young and first-time offenders rather than low-risk repeat offenders, for whom an OoCR could break the cycle of offending; the research also highlights the importance of including those with lived experience in the design of schemes, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: Wildlife and environmental crime is now estimated to be the fourth largest organised transnational crime sector, with significant overlaps into other forms of organised crime; Professor Phill Cassey, Director of the Wildlife Crime Research Hub at Adelaide University, explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the need for dedicated policing units to tackle the crime, alongside new legislation and tougher penalties for offenders.

INNOVATION: The recent UK police reform white paper outlined Police.AI as a crucial part of the modernisation process; but Vsevolod Shabad, an independent researcher and governance adviser specialising in AI accountability and public sector decision-making, warns that operational gains do not follow automatically from the deployment of AI, and governance models that don’t have the organisational capacity or understanding to accurately scrutinise system outputs and performance offer governance in name only.

FEATURE: A recent report on Best Value in Policing, published jointly by Audit Scotland and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, has warned that more than 10 years after it was formed – and in the face of increasingly complex challenges – workforce planning in Police Scotland “remains underdeveloped”, with the optimum workforce size, capacity and skillset still to be identified, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: Australia, like many other countries, has a long history of organised crime, much of which has flourished by exploiting illicit markets; Deakin University Associate Professor Dr James Martin, and University of Sydney Senior Lecturer Dr Edward Jegasothy, argue that the current government reliance on restrictions, penalties and police powers to disrupt supply and “crush” organised crime is actually more likely to drive it, and suggest a better route would be to bring better regulated markets into the open.

ANALYSIS: As UK policing starts to embrace machine-learning solutions and interest in algorithmic risk assessments grows, Tamara Polajnar, CEO of herEthical AI, explores the existing domestic abuse assessment tools, the importance of understanding how automated risk assessment is used and should be applied, and what steps need to be taken to ensure automation and algorithms can extract vital domestic abuse details and context lost in traditional tick-box methodologies.

OPINION: Following on from the publication of the Government’s Road Safety Strategy for England, and calls from some quarters for the measures to go further to prevent road fatalities, Leo Taylor, Director of Drivetech (the AA’s driver training and risk management business), explores what the strategy will mean for drivers and particularly for the role of roads policing, with a greater focus on the use of technology, collaboration with other stakeholders, and the preventative benefits of high-visibility policing.

FEATURE: Research into the impact of the police roll-out of the Right Care, Right Person model of responding to those in mental health crisis in England and Wales suggests that while the approach has made a “considerable contribution” to reducing police contact with those who have mental health problems, in some cases it has left others in frontline positions in “dangerous situations”, and has led to stakeholders “gaming the system” to ensure a police response, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: In the wake of the UK Government’s white paper on police reform, Steve Dodd, a former South Wales Police detective and College of Policing subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation, argues that policing can immediately adopt community intelligence-led policing methodology as an enabler for the Government’s ‘local to national’ ambitions.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons explores Ontario’s Mental Health Crisis Response programme, a virtual reality training model being rolled out to all officers across the province which research suggest can help to de-escalate those mental health crisis interventions, reduce the police use of force, and improve public trusts and confidence in law enforcement.

INTERVIEW: Human trafficking and exploitation are challenges that law enforcement cannot “police your way out of”, warns UCL’s Ella Cockbain, Professor of Human Trafficking and Exploitation, with more focus on a public health approach, improved listening to the voices of victims and survivors, and a better understanding of what really works among the key steps to meeting those challenges, as Prof Cockbain explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: New South Wales Police recently announced a six-month trial of drones manufactured by Chinese company DJI; the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Dr John Coyne and James Corera argue that the trial raises broader questions about the risks associated with technologies owned, controlled or influenced by foreign entities, particularly around mission scope, data management, infrastructure connectivity and supply chain resilience.

FEATURE: With the latest analyses by both the National Crime Agency and the European Union Drugs Agency highlighting the continuing rise of drug misuse across the continent, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth explores the work of a new project that focuses on upskilling local police, city prevention services, and youth and social workers as part of a multi-stakeholder approach to tackling the impact of the drug misuse.

ANALYSIS: As the dust begins to settle on the proposals laid out in the UK Government’s recent white paper on police reform, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett takes a closer look at the plans, exploring among other things the challenges around force mergers, the creation of a new national police service and the changing constitutional relationship between policing and government, and considers whether the suggested reforms laid out in the paper are simply too radical and too ambitious.

OPINION: While charge rates are often taken as an indicator of a police force’s success in tackling crime, many stakeholders argue that out-of-court resolutions (OOCRs) can provide victims with meaningful justice while reducing the burden on the court system; Ella Thomson, Research and Policy Officer for Transform Justice, sets out the findings of the organisation’s recent research into police use of OOCRs, as well as three key practical takeaways that can help forces to improve and increase their use of the diversionary measures.

ANALYSIS: Many police forces globally are grappling with the challenge of how they use social media such as X to improve communications and public engagement; research by Dr Usman A. Ojedokun, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Nigeria’s University of Ibadan, explores the success or otherwise of the Nigeria Police Force’s use of X for both engagement and crime reporting, and the reasons behind why some people opted for the social media route to contact the police.

INNOVATION: A study of drug violence dynamics on Merseyside has highlighted the importance of understanding the “informal governance mechanisms” employed by organised crime groups (OCGs), and has led to the creation of a ‘co-operation index’ tool which can help police to more effectively target resources and prevent increased violence between OCGs, as researcher Dr Andrea Giovannetti explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: From complex crimes and tight finances to emerging technology and the public expectations, policing in the UK is facing a wide range of often complex challenges; in an article drawing on her recent Atkins Lecture, Professor Kate Bowers, Director of UCL’s Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, sets out some of those key challenges and, in the wake of the recently published white paper on police reform, suggests some potential ideas to address them.