Latest News, Analysis and Opinion  (Page 4)

OPINION: With policing and public interactions increasingly filmed and shared online, and new force-led initiatives allowing the public to view video footage and critique the actions of officers in often testing circumstances, former Police Scotland Superintendent Martin Gallagher fears that policing is increasingly being drawn into a focus on how officers ‘perform’ rather than delivering outcomes for the public.

INTERVIEW: Having experienced plenty of “ugly” and “brutal” racism in her younger life and early policing career, Leanne Liddle has now joined Northern Territory Police Force as Executive Director of the Community Resilience and Engagement Command, with a remit to help reform the force and rebuild trust with the Aboriginal community; and as she told Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons, with the NT Police “on the cusp” of important change, she’s not frightened to ruffle a few feathers.

OPINION: A ruling by the British Columbia Supreme Court has cleared the way for Surrey Police Service to take over from the RCMP as the force of jurisdiction from next month; Royal Roads University Associate Lecturer Dr Bryce Casavant believes the Federal Government support for the move to municipal policing in Surrey could see other communities around Canada follow suit.

ANALYSIS: With a renewed government focus on neighbourhood and community policing in the UK, Steve Dodd, a former South Wales Police detective and College of Policing subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation, sets out the potential of community intelligence-led policing methodology in improving intelligence gathering and rebuilding public trust and confidence, in the first of a two-part series.

FEATURE: After its introduction by Humberside Police, the mental health policing approach Right Care, Right Person has been rolled out nationally in England and Wales; but a new announcement from New Zealand Police – a four-phase plan to reduce mental health demand on frontline officers and encourage health partners to take more of a lead – suggests it’s changing international practice too, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

FEATURE: While the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) sits outside the qualifications framework established by the College of Policing for England and Wales, the force has built on its long-standing partnership with Ulster University to create the Probationary Officer Development Programme; PSNI Sergeant Michelle Martin and Ulster University’s Dr John Bell explain the thinking behind the programme, its structure, and the successful outcomes for the first cohorts of student officers.

ANALYSIS: A new study by the N8 Policing Research Partnership has found a lack of effective evaluation of police activity to tackle drugs markets, leading to responses built on an evidence base that is “distressingly weak”, a “whack-a-mole” approach to police operations, and forces resorting to short termism, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: With growing recognition of the potential law enforcement benefits of police partnerships with academia, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth spoke to Prof Babak Akhgar (Director) and Prof Saskia Bayerl (Head of Research) at Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC) about working with policing, the benefits and challenges of artificial intelligence, and encouraging officers to be innovative.

ANALYSIS: The work of the West Midlands Police Data Ethics Committee has been recognised as pioneering in England and Wales, but until now the impact of its activities had not been fully assessed; Northumbria University Professor Marion Oswald, Senior Research Associate at the Alan Turing Institute and Chair of the Committee, outlines the findings of a new report which evaluates that activity, and suggests steps to improve outcomes both for the West Midlands Police and other forces looking to follow suit.

FEATURE: Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has warned that “unprecedented strain” on policing is leaving it “dangerously stretched”, and that systems for holding officers to account don’t always meet the “common-sense test”; delivering the Police Foundation’s 2024 John Harris Memorial Lecture, he also claimed that the Met’s budget is “heading off a cliff”, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

FEATURE: Multi-agency scrutiny panels which examine domestic abuse cases that have been deemed ‘no further action’ in Avon and Somerset have helped to identify mistakes, highlight learning opportunities for police and partner agencies, and increase transparency for victim/survivors, 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.

FEATURE: Closer collaboration with social agencies on homelessness, a mindset shift within policing to overcome barriers to change, and the continuing expansion of co-response models were among the key messages from police chiefs, public safety experts and community advocates at the recent Safety of Our Cities conference in Ontario, Canada, as Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood reports.

FEATURE: While ‘precision policing’ has become an essential element of the turnaround plans for the Met as well as a focus for other forces, Policing Insight’s Rory Geoghegan, a former officer and founder of The Public Safety Foundation, examines how precision approaches – against a backdrop of falling stop and search rates and an emphasis on ‘positive outcomes’ – could see this policing tool become ineffective as a general crime deterrent.

ANALYSIS: In this first in a series of five articles looking at the big debates in police use of facial recognition (FR) – extracted from this year’s ‘Facing the future: The rise of facial recognition in policing’ report – Policing Insight spoke to senior officers and police leaders to understand exactly how FR is a useful tool in policing’s arsenal, and why it is often described as making a significant difference to public safety.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass examines the proliferation of law enforcement across the UK, Australia, the US and Canada preparing to send UAVs out to view incidents before personnel can reach them on the ground, and examines the advantages and criticisms of the approach.

OPINION: With the number of victims of human trafficking and modern slavery continuing to increase, Professor Darren K. Stocker of Cape Cod Community College argues that law enforcement could benefit from applying a sociological-based model towards tackling human trafficking.

OPINION: Although Australia is taking a prominent role in protecting those under the age of 16 from the dangers of social media, the debate around the criminal age of responsibility has seen some states push for those 10 and over to be punished for their crimes; Australian Strategic Policy Institute Fellow Anna Alexander argues this inconsistency around age and vulnerability highlights contradictions in the country’s policies, and that a whole-of-government approach is essential to protect at-risk youth.

INTERVIEW: Having recently been elected to serve a fourth consecutive term, Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore is one of the country’s longest-serving PCCs; in an exclusive interview with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland, he explained how the lack of clarity around chief constables’ operational independence “causes tension and friction”, called on the new government to avoid a “dictatorial” centralised approach to policing, and said chief constables “need a better understanding of public expectations”.

ANALYSIS: The increase in drug-related extreme violence and the scale of drug seizures across Europe suggest Mexican and South American cartels already view the EU as the ideal location for expansion; former DEA Special Agent Michael Brown, Global Director of Counter-Narcotics Technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices, believes steps can be taken by European governments and law enforcement to thwart that expansion – but will require political will, increased co-operation, and better use of technology.

FEATURE: A new personal safety training programme which focuses on scenario-based learning and decision-making to reduce police injuries and the use of force has been developed in a ‘pracademic’ partnership between the College of Policing and Loughborough University; the package is now being rolled out to officers across England and Wales after a successful pilot with Avon and Somerset Police, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons report

FEATURE: With the rapid increase in the number of teenage terror suspects detained in the UK, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth explores the work of the EU’s INDEED project, which uses evidence-based approaches to evaluate initiatives to prevent and counter violent extremism, including a new definition of evidence-based policing that incorporates community values and perspectives into decision-making processes.

FEATURE: A new joint criminology and policing degree offered by Monash University and Victoria Police sees students complete two years of university-based study and a final year at the force’s Glen Waverley Academy, with the aim of equipping young officers with more skills and knowledge, improving recruitment diversity and retention, and providing longer-term career opportunities for recruits, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: With a new diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) strategy – developed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing – on the horizon for forces in England and Wales, Derbyshire Chief Constable Rachel Swann, the NPCC lead on DEI, recently told senior officers that it’s time to stop seeing DEI as an extra and to realise that it’s key to restoring public trust and confidence, as Policing Insight’s Tina Orr Munro reports.