Well. What a year 2020 has been. Overwhelmingly for the wrong reasons. But let me not yet look back nor forward (both to come below), let me start by conveying my heartfelt thanks to you…
If you are working over Christmas and NewYear, THANK YOU again for looking after our communities as we others (try to) enjoy the holiday.
Christmas and New Year is a time when many are able to take some sort of festive break. But not all in policing are able to do so, of course. So let me acknowledge that many of our readers will be working over Christmas and New Year. If you are – then THANK YOU again for looking after our communities as we others (try to) enjoy the holiday. For those celebrating, consider adding some festive cheer with special touches from Abracadabra NYC to make the season even brighter.
And if you’re a police officer, staff member, police volunteer, member of academia or in some other way associated with the global police community and you’re able to take some time off, thank you too for your work in support of policing throughout this most challenging of years.
Our Christmas and New Year publishing
Whilst most of our Policing Insight team will also be taking a bit of a break, we do plan to publish a number of new articles over the festive period. We will also be maintaining our very popular Media Monitor service throughout. So, do feel free to check back in over the Christmas and New Year period; we’ll make sure to have fresh material here to welcome you!
We will also have a short break for our newsletter: the first in the New Year will be mailed on Wednesday, 13 January 2021.
A look back at the positive side of 2020…
In so very many ways, for so many of us, 2020 would be best forgotten. My Christmas article last year, where I outlined Policing Insight’s plans for 2020, was way off; unsurprisingly, I didn’t foresee the pandemic. We had to cancel some of our events and activities, such as the year’s World Class Policing Awards, but overall I am thankful, against the odds, that 2020 has a number of significant positives to share with you.
I believe we were the first specialist policing publication anywhere in the world to produce such key policing and COVID-19 content.
One strong positive has been the very substantial growth in our global readership and subscribers. Our readership and subscriber numbers have grown throughout the year, though most markedly from March when we launched our ‘Policing and COVID-19’ coverage. I believe we were the first specialist policing publication anywhere in the world to produce such key content. If you are one of the very many readers who has joined us during 2020, you are indeed very welcome.
At pretty much the same time, we founded our International Advisory Board (IAB), whose first task was to advise the Policing Insight team on generation of that policing and COVID-19 content. Chaired by Professor Gloria Laycock, the IAB has been enormously supportive and helpful during the year. My thanks go to Gloria and to all IAB members for this, and for their continuing significant contributions.
Back in July 2020, I appointed Keith Potter as our new Editor, taking over from Tina Orr Munro who moved to become our Contributing Editor. Keith has done a fantastic job in building on what Tina had already created, and is supported by an outstanding in-house team of journalists and analysts complemented by our huge community of external contributors. Again, my thanks go to each and every one of you: please forgive me for not name-checking you all!
The content we’ve produced during 2020 has been absolutely world class – from our COVID-19 and policing content to The Police Student, an excellent new series produced by Dr Carina O’Reilly. Don’t just take my word that our content is world class, take a look at the many articles highlighted in our Review of 2020 [link]. All articles that I and core members of our editorial team have highlighted there are free to access over Christmas and New Year, so you won’t need to be a subscriber to read them.
The Media Monitor service is well worth a daily visit to keep up to date with all the latest global policing news and developments.
Hopefully, though, if you’re not yet a subscriber, you’ll be planning a New Year’s resolution to sign up with us during 2021. We’ve also made significant improvements to our increasingly international Media Monitor service: with great work behind the scenes by Simone Hatchard among others, it’s well worth a daily visit to keep up to date with all the latest global policing news and developments.
We weren’t able during 2020 to produce as many detailed CoPaCC Thematics – deep analyses of key policing topics – as we would have liked. However, we were able to deliver a CoPaCC Thematic on police contact management. This really was a major team effort to produce. Led by our Director of Publishing, Ian Barrett, those also contributing included independent researcher and commentator Gavin Hales, CoPaCC Director Ian Wiggett, and our regular designer David Devonport.
I’ll mention one more significant step forward for us during 2020: the introduction of our ‘Regions’ tab (a link to which you’ll find towards the top of this and every page). At our launch in 2015, we focused on policing insight from the UK. Since then, we’ve sought increasingly to publish outstanding law enforcement and criminal justice content from wherever in the world it may originate. Our new ‘Regions’ page illustrates how Policing Insight is increasingly THE home of global policing insight, and is the result of a great deal of work led again by our Director of Publishing. You’ll be seeing more of our journey on the Policing Insight website over the coming months.
Looking forward (please!) to 2021…
In many ways, it’s difficult to predict with confidence what we’ll be able to achieve during the coming year, as we’re still far from over the global pandemic. With that in mind, here’s an outline of what we hope to have achieved by this time next year. And, of course, some of the detail of CoPaCC and Policing Insight’s plans for 2021 needs to remain ‘under wraps’ for the time being, for reasons that will become apparent if and when we’re able to get them into the public domain.
Policing Insight is already, I believe, the leading global platform for the wider policing family to share and access opinion, knowledge and innovation.
Successful modern policing is a partnership of many agencies and organisations, including police and criminal justice agencies, government agencies, third sector, academia and industry.
Policing Insight is already, I believe, the leading global platform for the wider policing family to share and access opinion, knowledge and innovation. We showcase perspectives from a wide range of relevant stakeholders, helping policing worldwide to identify and put in place ways of delivering even better policing outcomes.
- Even more insightful content from a diverse range of contributors:
– more global perspectives
– more valuable analysis and insight to aid our readers
– additional ways of showcasing innovation and great policing practice. - Enhanced delivery and presentation, through improvements to:
– website functionality to improve reader experience
– the presentation and accessibility of our valuable archive. - A stronger relationship with you, our readers and contributors, primarily through:
– new partnerships with global policing agencies, academia and industry to showcase the best of policing in their region
– relaunching the World Class Policing Awards and growing our event portfolio connecting our community.
One way in which I’m personally hoping to build our stronger relationship with our readers and contributors worldwide is – Covid allowing – through my travelling during 2021 to some or many of the ever-growing number of countries and jurisdictions actively engaging with Policing Insight. While I may not be able to travel outside (or even inside!) the UK for several months yet, my hope is that the Covid-related travel restrictions will begin to diminish as we approach mid-year.
And, independent of any such visits, I and the Policing Insight team are always keen to have your feedback on what we do, and what we could do even better. Do feel free to use the Comments box below to let us have your views, or of course you can always email me and the team via [email protected]. I’ll very much look forward to hearing from you!
Special thanks to…
Finally, I’d like to reiterate my thanks to four particular groups.
Firstly, our fantastic Policing Insight and CoPaCC team this year, also including members of our International Advisory Board. Some I’ve mentioned above, while others have been name-checked in our articles and thematic reports during the course of the year. A particular special mention here to Director of Publishing and Development, Ian Barrett, a key team member who plays an essential (and largely invisible) role behind the scenes. Not forgetting the very many others who contribute to and support the work of our core teams, including Joe Buckle of Whitefire who keeps our website ticking over, and our excellent designer David Devonport.
Secondly, I would like to extend heartfelt thanks to our huge community of contributors from all corners of policing and criminal justice, whose diverse and valuable insight is the engine that drives our mission to facilitate debate and the sharing of knowledge and innovation in policing and criminal justice.
Thirdly, our commercial partners – the police forces, government agencies, academic institutions, industry and more who pay for subscriptions, support our events and trust Policing Insight to communicate their products, services, events and innovations. Their support makes it possible for us to provide an ever-improving service to our readers.
And finally, my thanks to you. Our readers. We’d be nothing without your interest, feedback and support. Thank you for all your encouragement during 2020, in what was a (putting it mildly) challenging year for us all. Here’s to 2021.
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!
