Latest News, Analysis and Opinion  (Page 22)

OPINION: With increased evidence of police officers around the world experiencing growing mental health trauma and PTSD, Neil Woods, a former undercover drugs officer and chairman of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) UK, believes policing urgently needs to explore the psychiatry revolution involving psychedelic medicine to protect officers’ mental health.

OPINION: A recent UK cross-party parliamentary report highlighted the cost to date of policing the protests around the war in Gaza, suggesting that this burden could prevent police from carrying out other duties effectively; but Eric Heinze, Professor of Law and Humanities at Queen Mary University of London, warns that failing to adequately fund public order policing to safeguard people’s rights to demonstrate could significantly reduce opportunities for legitimate public protest.

OPINION: The Renters (Reform) Bill should introduce a better deal for tenants, but also looks set to make victims of domestic violence more vulnerable to short-notice evictions without assessment or support; Generation Rent Chief Executive Ben Twomey, a former PCC candidate and policing and criminal justice specialist, believes the Government needs to rethink parts of the Bill in order to protect victims and support policing’s efforts to tackle and reduce domestic abuse.

FEATURE: New research by the University of Nottingham Rights Lab and ECPAT UK has found that dwindling police and local authority resources, increased workloads, lack of training, institutional biases, and changing political priorities have led to a significant rise in child exploitation through modern slavery, prompting calls for a comprehensive national strategy, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

LATEST RESEARCH: This summary curates the key policing-related research that's been published online in the last week, with links to the original journal articles, and selected abstracts.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Milipol Asia-Pacific and HTX’s TechX Summit have come together to showcase how science and technology is central to enhancing public safety and national security in the Asia Pacific. This landmark event will bring together top Government officials, operational experts, industry leaders and academia to discuss the latest solutions, strategies and challenges; share technological trends; and foster greater collaboration within the international Homeland Security community.

ANALYSIS: The latest statistics for England and Wales indicate that levels of recorded crime have fallen to an all-time low, yet there has been little mention of the significant drop by the media, the Government or forces themselves; in this second of two articles, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett considers the implications for how police performance is judged.

FEATURE: In the first in a series of white papers and articles exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in policing, AI expert Chief Philip Lukens looks at how body-worn cameras using elements of AI – such as natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning – can be used to extract, classify, and summarize key information from police encounters with the public, with a view to improving public confidence and trust.

JOBS ADVERT: Applications are invited from candidates who are ready to be promoted to the role of Chief Superintendent, Superintendent or Chief Inspector for both detective and uniformed roles. Cumbria Constabulary is looking for highly motivated, skilled professionals to join a high performance team.

INTERVIEW: In the second part of Policing Insight’s interview with Avon and Somerset Chief Constable Sarah Crew, she spoke to James Sweetland about the controversial incidents around issues of race explored in the TV series To Catch a Copper, and her own views expressed last year that the force is institutionally racist.

FEATURE: In January the Global Law Enforcement & Public Health Association (GLEPHA) published a series of reports as part of the ‘Envisaging the future of policing and public health’ project, covering a range of topics including harm reduction, diversion, and policing mental health; in the sixth in a series of seven articles, Policing Insight’s Thomas James looks at GLEPHA’s report on policing key populations.

ANALYSIS: Last week’s publication of the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry report highlighted significant concerns around misogyny, misconduct, and toxic cultures in policing in England and Wales; the findings echo previous research of female officers’ lived experiences by Senior Criminology Lecturer Dr Emma Cunningham, who believes policing needs support from outside experts to tackle misogyny and misconduct, and that change should begin with acceptance of the terms institutionalised racism and misogyny.

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in Dyfed-Powys, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in Gwent, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes.

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in North Wales, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in South Wales, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes.

ANALYSIS: As organisations, individuals and communities around the world look to mark International Women’s Day, Dr Sarah Jane Fox of the University of Leicester Law School looks at the progress and challenges around women’s representation and roles in policing globally, and considers what more policing could and should be doing to achieve gender equality and equity.

FEATURE: Police recruitment has become increasingly challenging, particularly in reaction to addressing community under-representation; Policing Insight’s Vernon White, a former Chief of Ottawa Police and RCMP officer, looks back at a recruitment programme in northern Canada’s Nunavut territory, where English Second Language classes and corrective laser eye surgery were among the initiatives employed to increase recruitment from the Inuit community.

FEATURE: This month will see 34 forces across England and Wales joint community and business partners to take part in a series of Safer Business Action days to tackle the significant increase in retail theft and violence against shop workers – an initiative which is also set to be expanded to include the night-time economy, as National Business Crime Centre Lead Supt Patrick Holdaway explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: The latest annual assessment by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), set out in a speech by Director-General Mike Burgess, has downgraded the terror threat level from ‘probable’ to ‘possible’; but Professor Greg Austin of the University of Technology Sydney believes the assessment is confusing, downplaying the threat of right-wing extremism while over-emphasising the threat from some foreign powers.

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in Avon and Somerset, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes.

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in Bedfordshire, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in Cambridgeshire, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes

POLICE FORCE FOCUS: Candidate details for the PCC Elections 2024 in Cheshire, along with details of previous PCC election outcomes