United Kingdom

ANALYSIS: In the fourth in our latest series focusing on police workforce development in England and Wales, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the unique opportunity offered by the Uplift recruitment programme to increase diversity, the relatively small change that has resulted, and the more noticeable shift in workforce profile to a service that has become younger and less experienced.

OPINION: Measures around UK public order policing that were defeated in the Police, Courts, Crime and Sentencing Bill are now making their way through Parliament in the Public Order Bill, prompting impassioned debate along the way; Senior Policing Lecturer Owen West, a former chief superintendent and public order policing specialist, argues that while the proposals may enthuse government supporters, they are not in the interest of the public or the police service.

FEATURE: An 800-strong UK policing team has been assembled to offer rapid response support to British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean in the event of powerful hurricanes hitting the island communities in the future, as Policing Insight Contributing Editor Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: From sexual abuse to modern slavery and county lines, tackling child exploitation is a complex challenge, and one where information sharing, identification and intervention are crucial; Dr Hayley Watson and Stephen Anning of Trilateral Research explain how a new ethical artificial intelligence (AI) platform developed in collaboration with Lincolnshire Police is analysing big data to provide early indicators of those children most vulnerable to potential exploitation.

OPINION: Police officers are regularly expected to use their discretion, policing skills and street craft to achieve the best outcomes for communities and the wider public; but Policing Lecturer and former police sergeant Barrie Archer fears that finding ways to ‘get the job done’ and make a broken system work can lead to noble cause corruption – or worse.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: What should your force expect from a digital evidence management system? Learn how evolving digital evidence management can tame the tidal wave of data and future-proof your organisation.

ANALYSIS: In this latest article in a series on 21st century community engagement, Intensive Engagement Managing Director Richard James (a former police territorial commander), Stephen Carr, Transformation Strategy Lead for the Home Office, and Police Foundation Research Director Andy Higgins build on the findings of the recent Strategic Review of Policing to explore local policing and leadership through the themes of people, problems and places.

ANALYSIS: In this third article in our latest series focusing on police workforce development in England and Wales – and with the Government and current Home Secretary Suella Braverman remaining committed to the Uplift target of 20,000 new police officers by April 2023 – Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the ‘churn’ of officers joining and leaving the service, the increasing number of resignations, and the marketplace for inter-force transfers, and considers the implications of these factors for the service.

ANALYSIS: This week’s publication of both the Crime Survey for England and Wales and the latest Police Recorded Crime (PRC) statistics offers the first comparable crime figures to before the pandemic; Meghan Elkin, joint head of crime statistics at the Office for National Statistics, explains how these latest figures can help to explain whether Covid has led to any sustained impacts on levels of crime, and how survey methods may also influence the data.

ANALYSIS: The contentious nature of policing inevitably gives rise to some complaints, and how those complaints are handled has been an issue of concern for both the public and police in the UK; in this final article in a series reviewing the police complaints process, Dr Rob Heaton and Professor Stephen Tong consider their findings so far, and point to some ways forward that could help to achieve a fair, open and more effective mechanism for dealing with misconduct.

ANALYSIS: Teaching methods are constantly evolving, driven in part by the emergence of new technology, and virtual reality (VR) is one of the latest learning tools; Claire Smith, a former police officer and now a Teaching Fellow at the University of Portsmouth, outlines the findings of a recent pilot study into how VR could be used to improve learning for the UK’s new student officers.

OPINION: Amid the current UK political chaos, one clearly emerging scenario is that further public spending cuts are now probable, with policing likely to be back in the firing line; Tom Gash, Managing Director of strategy consultancy Leapwise and former Director of Research at the Institute for Government, looks at how policing can navigate this harsh reality, and the current window of opportunity to prepare a case for protection from cuts and drive productivity improvements locally and nationally.

FEATURE: With the growing threat from cybercrime, policing is looking to build ever stronger partnerships to mitigate risk and improve learning and understanding; Detective Superintendent Nick Bell, CEO of the National Cyber Resilience Centre Group (NCRCG) and National Policing Director for the Cyber Resilience Centres, reports on the work of the NCRCG and the key themes explored at its inaugural summit earlier this month.

ANALYSIS: In this second article in our latest series focusing on police workforce development in England and Wales, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at police staff and police community support officer numbers, and the overall resource picture; while the public and politicians focus on the amount of police officers, forces are complex organisations, and overall capacity and capability depends on the combined staffing picture.

ANALYSIS: It’s little surprise that the contentious nature of policing will in some cases give rise to complaints, but the way those complaints are handled and resolved has been an issue of concern for both the public and police officers in the UK; in this second of three articles reviewing the police complaints process, Professor Stephen Tong and Dr Rob Heaton explore the nature and psychology of disputes, how similar conflict is resolved in other sectors, and why the assessment of how a complaint should be handled is so crucial.

OPINION: The recent publication of Baroness Casey’s interim report into the internal discipline system of the Met Police found not only an apparent failure to address misconduct by some officers, but little faith in the complaints procedure among the officers and staff of the UK’s largest force; Professor Colin Rogers of the University of South Wales believes that adopting an organisational justice approach could be key to meeting those challenges.

FEATURE: While the benefits and negative consequences of the police use of stop and search are frequently debated, the increased use of community scrutiny panels has been put forward as one measure to improve both monitoring and understanding of this policing tool; the panels were the focus of a recent @WeCops Twitter Chat, which has been summarised here by team member and West Mercia Sergeant Kerri Monaghan.

ANALYSIS: In this new article in our continuing series focusing on police workforce development in England and Wales, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the varying effects the Uplift recruitment programme has had on police officer numbers across different forces, and how potential new challenges around funding could significantly impact on some forces’ ability to meet both workforce and performance targets.

OPINION: Recent protest activities in the UK – in particular those by the Just Stop Oil group – have prompted much debate about the effectiveness of the police response to such actions; Graham Wettone, who spent much of his policing career managing public order policing, highlights some key challenges in responding to the current protests, and why it may be time for a more robust approach to those groups unwilling to engage.

OPINION: Despite pervasive ‘common sense intuitions’ to the contrary, a new report from the Sentencing Council for England and Wales states there is no evidence that harsher sentences deter crime; Penelope Gibbs, Director of Transform Justice, believes the findings of the report underline the need for a more effective sentencing regime that can help to reduce both crime and prison populations.

OPINION: Last month’s violent confrontations between groups of Hindu and Muslim men in Leicester seem to take many in the English city (including police) by surprise; however, Professor Chris Allen of the University of Leicester believes that rushing through a proposed review into the violence risks a failure to recognise that neither Muslim nor Hindu communities are one-dimensional or singular, and that not all the problems they experience are based in religion.

ANALYSIS: It’s little surprise that the contentious nature of policing will in some cases give rise to complaints, but the way those complaints are handled and resolved has been an issue of concern for both the public and police officers in the UK; in this first of three articles reviewing the police complaints process, Dr Rob Heaton and Professor Stephen Tong identify why some policing activity will inevitably lead to complaints, and why attempts to reform the complaints system to date seem to have fallen short of expectations.

INNOVATION: Making better use of technology has been recognised as key to improving police performance for many years, but security concerns around the use of cloud computing have been a source of tension; Jon Graham, Business Development Manager at digital solutions specialist Triad, believes that by developing effective security-first cloud strategies, police forces could achieve significant benefits from a move to the ‘new emergent model’.

FEATURE: Continuing the latest series of The Police Student, Policing Insight Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly takes a closer look at the key issues around the police use of force, including the challenges around the ways the use of force is measured (and any data interpreted), the guidelines on when and how officers can use force, and why wider work on public confidence is crucial to ensuring the use of force doesn’t damage police legitimacy.