Opinion

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix’s Policing Friendship Tour recently caught up with Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner Festus Akinbusoye, to walk and talk about the policing challenges facing the county including the disproportionality in the number of Black and Asian stabbing victims and offenders, the importance of stop and search – done properly and lawfully – and the task of tackling county lines drugs.

OPINION: The requirement for UK police recruits to either be graduates or achieve a degree as part of their training is still a subject of much debate; but University of Sunderland lecturers Dr Jerry Pearson and Adrian Smiles – both former serving officers – believe one area of the PEQF that needs to be addressed is delivering a degree qualification which recognises the skills and experience of those serving officers who are currently non-graduates.

OPINION: The UK Government’s Beating Crime Plan unveiled last month gives police forces the option to permanently relax the rules around Section 60 stop and search; but Anglia Ruskin University Researcher Winifred Agnew-Pauley, and University of Kent PhD candidate Bisola Akintoye, argue that Section 60 is ineffective in reducing crime, and that the Government’s own assessment of the changes recognises they are likely to disproportionately affect black and minority ethnic people.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix’s Policing Friendship Tour recently caught up with Ian Bell, CEO of the Police Digital Service (PDS), for a stroll around the urban landscape of Wembley; after 18 months of rapid technological change in policing and across the public sector – driven in large part by the pandemic – Mr Bell spoke about the challenges of COVID-19, the development of the PDS and the National Policing Digital Strategy, and the organisation’s aims and ambitions move forwards.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports on a terrorist drone attack in India that has raised concerns among security policymakers around the world, and highlighted the fact that unmanned aerial vehicles present a clear and present danger to the public – one for which police and security authorities remain poorly prepared.

INTERVIEW: Professor Paul Taylor, who became the UK’s first Police Chief Scientific Adviser in May, believes policing leaders recognise that science and technology will be crucial to the service going forwards; he spoke to Policing Insight Deputy Editor Sarah Gibbons about what his role will be, the importance of partnerships with education and industry, and how the National Crime Laboratory will drive evidence-based good practice in communities across the country.

FEATURE: The rape and murder of Sarah Everard in the UK has been a wake-up call to the wider issue of violence against women and girls, a problem that has resonated with female communities globally; former Detective Chief Superintendent Gareth Bryon looks at both the legislative and law enforcement responses in the UK and the US, as well as moves to tackle the subjugation of women and reinforce women’s rights around the world.

OPINION: Last month Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled the UK Government’s new ‘Beating Crime Plan’ – not in parliament or at a press launch, but in a Sunday newspaper column; Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett examines the lack of consultation, paucity of new ideas and absence of additional funding in the plan, and considers whether tone and public perception have become much more important than evidence-based actions and initiatives.

OPINION: Until now, UK police IT systems have received much less attention from the public and the media than new technologies such as facial recognition and predictive policing, but recent problems have brought increased attention; Dr Katerina Hadjimatheou, Lecturer in Criminology and Ethics at the University of Essex, believes it’s time the spotlight was shone on the three big private technology companies behind these reportedly failing systems.

OPINION: Police canteens have largely disappeared from the police estate, and with them the opportunity to socialise, offer emotional support, and share hopes and fears; Liverpool John Moores University Lecturer Nick Kealey, and Open University Lecturer Dr Sean Bell – both former Merseyside Police officers – argue that reinstating police canteen or night-kitchen facilities could be an important step in improving mental health support and reducing stigma.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix’s Policing Friendship Tour recently caught up with Andy Marsh, Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset, for a stroll around Bristol ahead of his retirement from the service in July; following a busy year for the Constabulary, which included the BLM protests and the Kill the Bill riots, Mr Marsh talked to Bernard about the challenges over the past 12 months, the changes during his 34 years in policing, and the work of the COPS charity.

FEATURE: Alongside the COVID-19 health crisis, devastating natural disasters and criminal threats ranging from cyber attacks to terrorism have left policing and protective forces around the world – including the UK – at full stretch; now a call for evidence to develop a new UK National Resilience Strategy is underway, and as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth explains, input from the country’s emergency responders will be vital.

OPINION: Australia’s female prison population has increased significantly, with First Nations women disproportionately affected, as laws and measures introduced to protect women and children from male violence have led to more females being jailed; Monash University Associate Professor Silke Meyer believes it’s time to invest more in primary prevention to end violence against women.

Policing Friendship Tour: Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix’s Policing Friendship Tour recently caught up with Police Federation of England and Wales Vice-Chair Ché Donald, for a stroll around the Surrey Downs; as they walked and talked, Ché and Bernard discussed the impact of the pandemic on policing, the relentless pressures on officers and staff, trial by media, the challenges of recruitment, retention and diversity, and the importance of addressing mental health – along with a heartwarming story of overcoming addiction.

OPINION: Drill and grime music has often been linked (rightly or otherwise) to urban gangs, with claims that lyrics and videos posted on social media are an incitement to violence; but Liverpool John Moores University Policing Studies graduate Gwen Jones argues that the use of Criminal Behaviour Orders to prevent artists recording or publishing new material has criminalised those musical genres, often without evidence of preventing crime.

OPINION: Levels of violent crime across America saw an unprecedented increase in 2020, and remain worryingly high in 2021; in this latest essay from the Violence Reduction Project, former NYPD Detective Sergeant Joseph Giacalone, now an Adjunct Professor at the City University of New York, explains why solving cold cases could build community bridges, take more offenders off the street, and play a crucial part in reducing levels of violence.

OPINION: Defining laws on hate speech is notoriously difficult; but as New Zealand considers new legislation to protect groups against the impact of hate speech, Dr Eddie Clark, Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, believes that the current insistence on proving a link to inciting violence as a precondition for defining hate speech regulation is wrong, and contradicts other existing forms of speech regulation in New Zealand law.

OPINION: The balance between protecting civil liberties and ensuring national security is under scrutiny in Australia, as global issues such as the threat of extremism, international conflicts and the COVID-19 pandemic impact on communities nationally and locally; lawyer Lydia Shelly and Dr John Coyne of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute believe the long-term solution is a bill of rights – but there are short-term measures that could be taken in the meantime.

OPINION: Levels of violent crime across America saw an unprecedented increase in 2020, and remain worryingly high in 2021; in this latest essay from the Violence Reduction Project, born and bred city resident Voice of Chicago highlights the devastating impact of the increase in the number of murders, violence and gun crime has had on the city’s Black community, and what can be done to address the problem.

OPINION: The increased use of police body-worn cameras has been welcomed in many quarters as a route to improving transparency and accountability; but Bryce Newell, Assistant Professor of Media Law and Policy at the University of Oregon, fears that public records laws such as those prevalent in the US can lead to people’s most sensitive and traumatic moments being made available for public viewing.

OPINION: In the latest in his series of bi-monthly articles, Superintendent Simon Nelson, President of the Disabled Police Association, looks at the importance of creating a safe, supportive and inclusive environment within policing, which enables those with a disability to share their identity of living with those conditions, and ensure that forces make best use of the extensive skillsets that people have to offer.

OPINION: There are calls from some quarters in Australia for the introduction of ‘negligent rape’, based on a ‘recklessness’ towards the consent of the victim, rather than deliberately disregarding the lack of consent; but Dr Rachael Burgin of Swinburne University of Technology, University of Sydney PhD student Bri Lee, and Professor Jonathan Crowe of Bond University argue that such a move would create a rape ‘hierarchy’ that is both wrong and offensive.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix’s Policing Friendship Tour recently arrived in Leamington Spa, where he was able to walk and talk with long-term police tech supplier Simon Hall about the challenges of police procurement, the launch of the new Police Digital Service, and the benefits of partnership working in reaching a global law enforcement market.

OPINION: A recent UK cross-party report has called for major changes to the forthcoming Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, along with a warning that the police must not become the ‘enforcement agency of the state’; but with the report’s criticism of recent protest policing quickly rejected by some senior leaders, former chief superintendent Owen West believes the concerns over political interference in policing are falling on deaf ears.