United Kingdom

FEATURE: In our continuing series aimed at supporting the new police degree entry recruits, Policing Insight's Academic Editor Dr Carina O'Reilly looks at how research interventions can be undermined unless we take a scientific approach right from the beginning.

INTERVIEW: In the fourth in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, Policing Insight talks to President of the College and former Met Police DAC Rod Jarman – and poses five key questions on the police-public relationship – ahead of his workshops on the issue later this week.

ANALYSIS: Within days of the COVID-19 lockdown being announced in the UK, crime analysts were making predictions about its impact on criminal behaviour; so were they right? Professor Graham Farrell, Dr Sam Langton and Data Scientist Anthony Dixon of the School of Law at the University of Leeds examine the crime figures and trends from the first six months of the pandemic.

OPINION: A digital categorisation tool is now in use in prisons in an effort to reduce crime on the wings and in wider society; but as a new Police Foundation discussion document highlights, the use of police intelligence data as the basis for prisoner ‘risk ratings’ raises concerns over accuracy, bias and transparency, as the Foundation’s Director, Rick Muir, explains.

UCL COVID-19 SERIES: In this latest article from the UCL COVID-19 series, Graham Farrell and Emily Sheard from the University of Leeds discuss how the new legislation on mandatory face masks could inadvertently be aiding criminal behaviour.

OPINION: In the third in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, independent cyber and security consultant Graeme McGowan explains why the move of millions of employees to remote online working in response to the coronavirus could lead to a cybercrime legacy of that lasts long after any lockdown is over.

ANALYSIS: The recent Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Act was drafted in part to answer public concerns about collecting and retaining biometric samples; but the legislation, and corresponding laws in England and Wales, place Scottish samples on UK databases in a legislative and regulatory limbo, as Post-Doctoral Researcher Karen Richmond of the University of Copenhagen explains.

OPINION: The coronavirus pandemic has affected all areas of society, and all facets of policing; in the second in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, Polly Harrar, Joint Chair of the Met’s Harmful Practices Working Group and Founder of national BAME specialist charity The Sharan Project, shares her experiences of the policing response to harmful practices in the COVID-19 era.

OPINION: With the UK Government’s three-year Comprehensive Spending Review due to be announced in the next few weeks, UNISON National Officer Ben Priestley warns that an inadequate settlement could see police staffing levels fall – and the prospect of many of the additional officers promised by the Prime Minister restricted to station duties to plug the gaps.

FEATURE: Faced with further austerity measures, Bedfordshire Police rejected another morale-sapping restructure and turned instead to management consultants PwC; Sarah Gibbons reports on how the resulting award-winning approach has led to performance improvement, £7m of reinvested savings and a legacy for the long term.

OPINION: The coronavirus pandemic has affected all areas of society, and in turn, all facets of policing. In the first in a series of articles linked to this month's Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, former officer and current police trainer Martin Edwards shares his experiences of delivering police education in the COVID-19 era.

ANALYSIS: In their second of two articles marking the centenary of the Baird Committee Report, which recommended that women should be employed as sworn police officers across England and Wales, Dr Wendy Laverick and Professor Peter Joyce look at the role of women of women in policing since the 1980s to today – including discrimination, the Gender Agenda and contemporary thinking.

OPINION: This month the UK Home Secretary has instructed the HMICFRS to carry out a thematic inspection of public order policing; crowd policing expert and former police Chief Superintendent Owen West looks at current guidance on the issue, and why the political context of this decision raises concerns over the curtailing of democratic rights.

Analysis: Jamie Clinch, a former Masters student in Forensic Psychology, discusses the findings of research she conducted into the effectiveness of alcohol-related violence intervention programmes as part of a collaboration between Coventry University and West Midlands Police.

UCL COVID-19 SERIES: In this latest in the series of COVID-19 briefing papers published by UCL’s Jill Dando Institute, Professor Graham Farrell of the University of Leeds highlights the changing nature of pandemic crime, from furlough fraud and fake PPE to cybercrime and civil law breaches.

ANALYSIS: This year marks the centenary of the Baird Committee Report, which recommended that women should be employed as sworn police officers across England and Wales. In the first of two articles, Dr Wendy Laverick and Professor Peter Joyce present a historical account of the involvement of women in policing, the barriers and obstacles they faced, and the current and future situation regarding equality of opportunity.

FEATURE: The tragic shooting of Met Police Sgt Matt Ratana last month once again highlighted the horrific impact of the illegal trade in unlicensed firearms; Policing Insight contributor Andy Staniforth looks at at the latest trends in firearms trafficking, and the steps being taken across Europe to stem the flow of weapons.

FEATURE: The International Crime Coordination Centre was set up to lead UK policing’s fight against transnational crime, through Brexit and beyond; Policing Insight Contributing Editor Tina Orr Munro talks to ICCC Head, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Martin, about the Centre’s work to date, the threat from globalised criminality, and the challenge of making the investigation of international crime ‘business as usual’.

OPINION: Adrian Timberlake, chief technical officer at 7Technologies, examines the potential uses of new technology in border control and missing person identification, and how intelligent technologies could help to combat modern slavery.

OPINION: Diversity has long been a crucial concern in policing, but the wider criminal justice system has also come under scrutiny on the issue; Penelope Gibbs, Director of Transform Justice, believes plans to raise the retirement age for judges and magistrates could seriously damage the diversity of the judiciary and magistracy.

ANALYSIS: The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill, published in April, aims to consolidate existing hate crime legislation, as well as introducing new offences and abolishing blasphemy. Kath Murray, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Lisa Mackenzie of the MurrayBlackburnMackenzie Policy Analysis Collective analyse and explain police responses to the new bill and its wide-ranging ramifications.

INTERVIEW: The COVID-19 pandemic should act as a catalyst for policing transformation, says Andrew Newsham, PwC National Lead for Policing – but greater collaboration, enhanced sharing of good practice and a clear, unified message on funding will be crucial to enable the service to meet the post-lockdown policing challenges.

OPINION: While there are undoubtedly resource and technology costs attached to the police use of social media, the contribution it can make to the delivery of policing in both physical and digital spaces needs to be understood and acknowledged, says Dr Liam Ralph, Research Fellow at Northumbria University.

OPINION: In the third in a series of three articles on law enforcement and digital technology, Ian Stevenson, Chair of the Online Safety Technology Industry Association (OSTIA) and CEO and co-founder of Cyan Forensics, considers some of the key questions and challenges around innovation and technology in policing.