United Kingdom

FEATURE: The recent attacks in the UK on two men leaving mosques, along with this year’s Jehovah’s Witness Hall shootings in Hamburg and Koran burning in Stockholm, have highlighted once again the threats to places of worship and their congregations; in the last in a series of articles on the PROTECTOR project, and ahead of this week’s conference on the issue, Policing Insight’s Andy Staniforth looks at latest initiatives to tackle the threat, and the key themes set to be explored at Tuesday’s event.

LONG READ: Thirty years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence – and the subsequent Inquiry description of the Met Police as “institutionally racist” – the force, and UK policing more widely, is wrestling with many of the same issues; Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass spoke to officers involved both then and now to find out what has changed over the past three decades, and what more needs to be done.

INTERVIEW: An EU-funded three-month mentoring scheme is connecting female police officers in The Gambia with experienced colleagues in Thames Valley Police; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to Sarah-Jane Bray, who is managing the mentoring programme, about the shared challenges facing female officers, and the strong connections built between officers based more than 3,500 miles apart.

OPINION: With the growing prospect of the responsibility for large national IT programmes passing from the Home Office to policing, the way the service gets its technology looks set to change; Sharad Rathi, Operations Director and Public Sector lead at HCLTech, believes that how that technology is developed and delivered is at least as important as which public body is delivering it.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: There has been intense discussion about police use of facial recognition in recent years, with questions surrounding the ethics and practical implementation of Live Facial Recognition in public spaces. Ian Williams discusses how Motorola Solutions’ Pronto digital policing platform is leveraging other applications of facial recognition technology that address the interests of victims and the public at large.

OPINION: The recently published Casey Review highlighted issues of a “toxic culture” in parts of the Metropolitan Police including racist, sexist and misogynistic behaviour; but doctoral researcher Kathryn Farrow of the University of Oxford argues that while the findings and headlines have focused on the Met, other forces around the country still have much work to do on many of the same issues.

ANALYSIS: It’s long been argued that the police funding formula in England and Wales, which relies mainly on a combination of central government grant and locally set precept, is in need of reform, and fails to recognise the areas of greatest need; Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the increasing dependence on the precept, the challenges around deprivation, and whether politicians are really willing to tackle a funding conundrum that has no comfortable fix.

OPINION: A recent Scottish court case that saw a 21-year-old given a non-custodial sentence for rape – largely in the hope of aiding his rehabilitation – has prompted much discussion about the age of criminal responsibility; former Police Scotland superintendent Martin Gallagher believes the criminal justice system needs to be reset to recognise that with rights come responsibilities, and that offender rehabilitation must be balanced with justice for victims and protection of the public.

OPINION: With concerns over the ever-expanding police mission and political interference in policing, continuing doubts about the efficacy of the 43-force structure in England and Wales, anger over pay and conditions and a legitimacy crisis reminiscent of that of the late 1950s, a new Royal Commission into policing could be the best way to determine what we expect of the police service, and how it is going to achieve those aims, argues former officer and University of Derby Policing Lecturer Tom Andrews.

INNOVATION: With the publication of Baroness Casey’s Review the most recent development to highlight the importance of integrity in policing, the need for more effective employee vetting and screening processes is once again under the spotlight; Dr Matt Bland, Associate Professor in Evidence-Based Policing at Cambridge University, outlines the work undertaken by Master’s student Nick Dale to develop a screening solution that could be a gamechanger for UK policing.

OPINION: With the recent Casey Review once against highlighting the need for changes to existing ‘police culture’ and the concept of ‘leadership’ in UK policing, former officer Tom Andrews, Policing Lecturer at the University of Derby, looks at previous examples of direct entry into policing, and considers whether this approach could offer solutions to some of the concerns raised by Baroness Casey and others.

FEATURE: Facial recognition technology is often criticised for its purported disproportionality, with police use of this tool already banned in some parts of the world; but a new academic study – hailed by the Met and South Wales Police – challenges this narrative, arguing that British policing is deploying live facial recognition tech that is effective and avoids the problem of disproportionality, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

OPINION: The recent final report of the Baroness Casey Review into standards of behaviour and internal culture in the Metropolitan Police Service included findings of “institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia”, and of a force that is “losing its way”; ahead of a virtual panel exploring these issues later this month, former Met and West Midlands officer Ron Winch, now Senior Teaching Fellow in Policing at Birmingham City University, looks at what needs to be done to get the force and policing back on course.

INTERVIEW: As religious tensions once again threaten to boil over in Jerusalem – with places of worship at risk of becoming backdrops for violence – Policing Insight’s Andy Staniforth spoke to An Garda Síochána Sergeant Eugene O’Leary about his force’s involvement in the PROTECTOR project, which aims to design, develop and deliver the next generation of integrated measures to enhance the protection of all places of worship.

OPINION: Police are increasingly the first point of contact to respond to those in mental health crisis, but when restraint has been the focus of such a response, some cases have led to tragic consequences; Lynn Emslie, Chair of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody, believes a partnership response from policing and health services could help to avoid future fatalities.

OPINION: While the debate continues around UK police education and the various entry routes for recruits into policing, former officer and now University of Central Lancashire Policing Lecturer Derek Flint argues that the ‘precious union’ between policing and academia needs to be maintained and strengthened to ensure the service has constables with a ‘professional curiosity’, and a desire and a determination to find out ‘why’ things are happening.

OPINION: With the police Uplift programme to recruit 20,000 ‘additional’ officers across England and Wales due to have hit its target at the end of March, change management consultant and former police officer Tom Wheelhouse looks at what the initiative has achieved – and the challenges that have arisen – around the issues of recruitment, retention and resettlement.

SERIES LAUNCH: We are pleased to announce the launch of the latest series of The Police Student, supporting degree-entry recruits to the police service. This new series looks at criminology – the study of crime, how we think about it, what causes crime, the way that criminal justice agencies respond to offenders, and how all of this can affect what you do as police officers.

FEATURE: In the first of a new series of The Police Student focusing on Criminology in Policing, Policing Insight Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly looks at the definition of criminology, the wide range of areas that feed into the discipline, and how the various approaches to criminal justice – including retributive justice, deterrence, and rehabilitation – impact on the role of policing.

RESEARCH: For several years, successive UK governments have vowed to crack down on antisocial behaviour, and with an election likely next year, the current Conservative Government has pledged to take fresh action; but as Leeds Beckett Criminology Lecturer Kirsty-Louise Cameron points out, with vague and often differing definitions of what antisocial behaviour is, some people could find themselves facing eviction and even prosecution for actions many would consider acceptable.

OPINION: The relationship between the police and the media has always been complex, but recent coverage of high-profile crimes involving officers, along with a raft of inquiries and reviews, has prompted concerns that the current reporting of law enforcement is negatively biased and contributing to the fall in public confidence; in the first of two Policing Insight opinion articles on the issue, former officer and regular ‘police commentator’ Graeme Wettone looks at how the relationship has changed – and what can be done to improve it.

INTERVIEW: In the latest in a series of interviews with leading figures involved in the research and investigation of organised crime, Policing Insight’s Chris Allen spoke to former police officer and Interpol Director Michael O’Connell, now Managing Director of Critical Insights Consultancy, about biometric-based travel bans to stop criminals at national borders, the importance of following financial trails, and why the UK’s Baroness Casey Review has implications for all policing agencies.

RESEARCH: The wealth of CCTV footage recorded in a wide range of public and private settings regularly forms vital evidence in court cases; but a new study of British murder investigations by Professor Fiona Brookman and Research Fellow Helen Jones of the University of South Wales suggests that issues around interpretation, availability and quality of CCTV represent challenges and risks that can make such evidence unreliable and problematic.

ANALYSIS: Ten years after the pilot of the first Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS) in England and Wales, this vital safeguarding tool is now on the statute books; while other countries around the world have introduced similar schemes, Dr Katerina Hadjimatheou of Essex University believes the approaches adopted both in England and Wales and South Australia  around who can be given information, and when and how disclosures can be made, set an example for other countries to follow.