Opinion

OPINION: Being a police officer was Sam Smith’s dream job, but when his mental health began to suffer as a result of his career choice, the lack of resilience training and minimal support meant the dream turned sour; now the former Hertfordshire PC has launched the Green Ribbon Policing campaign, calling for a mandatory national standard for mental health within policing.

INTERVIEW: Former Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson looks at the problems the force faces around diversity and discrimination, the effects of unionisation, concerns over militarisation of the RCMP, and fears over the wider erosion of police independence, in the second part of his interview with Policing Insight.

OPINION: The digital data trail each of us leaves online is commonly used by commercial organisations to target marketing and sales efforts; but as Dr Roberto Musotto, a Research Fellow at Western Australia’s Edith Cowan University explains, ‘social network analysis’ could be a crucial tool in enabling judges and jurors to assess the value of evidence in complex cases.

OPINION: Only 3% of the estimated 3.8 million UK fraud offences in 2019 resulted in a prosecution, and the pandemic has presented fraudsters with the perfect climate to carry out more crimes; Waheed Saleem, Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner in the West Midlands, believes an overhaul of fraud reporting and a new coordinated policing response are crucial to fighting the fraudsters.

FEATURE: London Policing College’s recent Policing in the Time of Pandemic conference included a focus on COVID-19’s impact on domestic abuse and harmful practices; Polly Harrar, founder of The Sharan Project and Joint Chair of the London Harmful Practices Working Group, highlights the key messages from the workshops held ahead of the conference, and the lessons for policing moving forwards.

OPINION: Tackling the county lines drug trade and protecting vulnerable youngsters exploited by dealers is a challenge for many UK forces, and was the key focus for the @WeCops Twitter chat at the end of November; in this article @WeCops Dr Emma Williams brings together the main points from the debate.

INTERVIEW: A 24/7 digital contact management system being pioneered by Surrey Police could improve relations with reluctant to engage communities and strengthen neighbourhood policing; Chief Constable Gavin Stephens tells Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons how the digital approach could help to rebuild public trust.

INTERVIEW: Keeping concealed and prohibited items out of operational police premises is a major security challenge, amplified by COVID-19 social distancing requirements. Professor Garik Markarian, CEO of Rinicom Ltd, explains to Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth the aims of Project Artifact, which advances non-invasive security screening to detect the hostile intentions of visitors, contractors and suppliers, as well as insider threats.

INTERVIEW: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is an iconic law enforcement agency, instantly recognisable and internationally renowned, but in recent years the force has faced more testing times and controversies than most; in this two-part interview, former RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson talks to Policing Insight about the challenges facing the Mounties.

OPINION: The police response to domestic abuse can traumatise victims for a second time, as the push to secure a prosecution leaves them feeling powerless and ignored; Professor Dawn Moore of Canada’s Carleton University warns that women can be as fearful of police as they are of their abusers.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports on a new EU border security and surveillance system which could see unmanned, automated robots becoming the eyes and ears of a new Fortress Europe

OPINION: The COVID-19 pandemic has put even more women at risk of domestic abuse, but addressing the crime only as a ‘women’s issue’ risks blaming the victim and ignoring the actions of the offender; Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens believes that to stop the cycle of reoffending it's essential to start working with perpetrators.

INTERVIEW: With a force area covering 2.5 million square kilometres – the world's largest non-federated jurisdiction – Western Australia Police face unique challenges, and enforcing COVID-19 restrictions was certainly one of them; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to WA Deputy Commissioner Gary Dreibergs about the pioneering, police-led app that made all the difference.

OPINION: There is increasing pressure on public and private sector organisations to ensure data security, in an era of expanding and evolving cyber crime; Susan Brown, Founder and CEO of specialists Zortrex, believes the concept of tokenisation – already used widely in financial services – could bring benefits for policing.

UCL COVID-19 SERIES: In this latest in the series of COVID-19 briefing papers published by UCL’s Jill Dando Institute, Professor Martin Gill of Perpetuity Research and Consultancy International looks at the potential frauds emerging from the pandemic, and what the public, businesses and law enforcement agencies can do to deter the fraudsters.

OPINION: In the latest in a series of articles following up from the UK’s recent N8 Policing Research Partnership conference, Police Foundation Director Rick Muir reiterates the importance of policing and academic partnerships, and outlines the Foundation’s objectives for the second phase of its Strategic Review of Policing.

OPINION: The recent announcement by the UK Government that a new, world-leading counter-terror operations centre will be opened in London has been widely welcomed, and as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports, the collaboration between policing and M15 will be crucial to the success of the ongoing fight against terrorism.

OPINION: When a community’s belief that police will be fair and respectful diminishes, so too does the legitimacy of policing itself, and the result can be slide into broken relations and the ‘harder' use of police powers; criminologist Professor Mike Hough of Birkbeck, University of London explores how procedural justice theory can explain these interactions – and hopefully offer a route back to more effective community relations.

Opinion: In Australia, the recent Victorian Royal Commission into Police Management of Informants has highlighted concerns over police accountability, and called for major changes around oversight and transparency; but Professor Jude McCulloch and Professor Michael Maguire, both of Monash University, argue that real progress will require more extensive reform.

OPINION: Following a recent three-year pilot, provisions in a new UK Domestic Abuse Bill will pave the way for mandatory lie-detector testing of high-risk domestic abuse perpetrators; but Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth argues that new scientific test techniques would be more effective and appropriate than using outdated polygraph methods.

OPINION: In the latest in his series of bi-monthly blogs, Superintendent Simon Nelson, President of the Disabled Police Association, looks at UK Disability History Month, how far policing has come in relation to diversability and neurodiversity, and what more still needs to be done.

OPINION: Former armed forces personnel make up the UK’s largest group of male prisoners by occupation, so what more can be done to support ex-service mean and women in the CJS? Sarah Grand-Clément, senior analyst at RAND Europe and one of the authors of a new report into the issue, believes there are more steps that police and government can take to provide targeted support to those from a military background.

INTERVIEW: Incorporating new technology, collaborating with partners and maintaining social legitimacy are just some of the challenges facing Chile’s PDI in the future, explains Director General Héctor Espinosa, in the second half of his two-part interview with Policing Insight.

ANALYSIS: When the UK leaves the EU at the end of this year – with or without a deal – it will also withdraw from the European Arrest Warrant; Dr Amanda Kramer of Queen’s University Belfast, and Dr Rachael Dickson of the University of Birmingham, argue that whatever takes its place is likely to be less effective or efficient.