Crime

OPINION: The ‘local to national’ UK police reform proposals offer a revolution of idealism, says former South Wales Police detective Steve Dodd, a subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation, who argues that the community intelligence-led policing methodology approach – offering enhanced visibility across local police areas and promoting increased intelligence gathering – could create the profound change needed to deliver crime prevention through community-led intelligence.

OPINION: With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly being used in law enforcement globally, University of Virginia Postdoctoral Research Fellow Maria Lungo and Associate Professor Steven Johnson explore how AI can lead to mistreatment of people because of technical flaws as well as misplaced human faith in the technology’s supposed objectivity.

INTERVIEW: Dr Joe Whittaker, Programme Director of the MA in Cyber Crime & Terrorism at Swansea University, spoke to Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth about his research into extremists’ use of the internet, the unintended consequences of the removal of terrorist content online, and the need for policing to recognise that while the internet is often integral to radicalisation, most terrorists and extremists are involved in offline physical networks that play an important role in the process.

OPINION: Youth offending in Victoria is rising, burglary is at record levels, and retail theft is the fastest-growing crime category, yet the prevailing response remains largely reactive; evidence from Victoria’s own prevention programs shows that upstream investment in youth justice produces measurable reductions in offending, says strategy and reform consultant Kavitha Vipulananda – the harder question is whether the structural conditions exist to deliver it at scale.

FEATURE: A ‘deep dive’ review of the multi-agency safeguarding responses to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence has highlighted the “vast and complex landscape” around safeguarding children and young people, with fragmented strategies, gaps in legislation, and a reluctance among young-in-service police officers to undertake foot patrols all contributing to an ongoing “perfect storm” of continued child exploitation, as Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: The Metropolitan Police’s recent use of Palantir AI to identify more than 600 officers involved in wrongdoing and corruption may have been successful in its aims, but has also proved controversial; police officer and ethics specialist Dr Richard Cockbain warns that while the approach may have achieved compliance benefits, addressing unethical behaviour is not the same as building ethical approaches, and the covert deployment of AI serves to undermine the trust of both the public and the workforce.

FEATURE: A new study into the wellbeing of disaster victim identification (DVI) officers has highlighted the “moral dissonance” experienced by staff that can contribute to stress and psychological strain, the continuing stigma of seeking help and support for their mental wellbeing, and the damaging impact that the media’s glamourisation of crime scene investigation can have on new DVI recruits whose expectations are far removed from the reality of deployment, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: The recent Domestic Homicide Project report highlights that, for the third year running, suspected victim suicides following domestic abuse in England and Wales have overtaken the number of homicides involving current or previous partners; Policing Lecturer Lee Curran, of the Liverpool Centre for Advanced Policing Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, explores the vital role police officers have to play in recognising the links between domestic abuse and suicide, and the potential for early intervention.

FEATURE: At INTERPOL’s annual Heads of National Central Bureaux Conference last month, one of the most insightful updates was on the results of Operation Thunder, the operation to intercept and seize illegally traded wildlife and forestry commodities across the global supply chain, and identify, disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks involved, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

INTERVIEW: Forces across England and Wales need to give a greater priority to vehicle theft and recognise it as often a key component in organised crime, says Surrey Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Grahame, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on vehicle crime, who spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the growing focus on ports to target the many stolen cars and parts shipped overseas, and the need to collaborate more closely with industry and technology partners.

FEATURE: An independent review of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), commissioned by Chief Constable Jon Boutcher and carried out by leading barrister Rachel Langdale KC, has acknowledged the efforts of officers across the force in tackling violence against women and girls, but warns that much more needs to be done to tackle the “clear evidence of sexism and misogyny within the PSNI”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: A Boston police officer has been charged with manslaughter following the recent fatal shooting of an unarmed man, and body camera footage is expected to be crucial in the case; however, the fact that despite widespread calls the footage has not been released highlights the challenges around claims that body-word cameras provide transparency and accountability, as well as the police and public’s different understanding of those concepts, says Brandon University’s Professor Christopher J. Schneider.

INTERVIEW: Following the launch of the UK’s National Knife Crime Centre (NKCC), Commander Stephen Clayman, the officer leading the centre, spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the role of the NKCC, efforts to “join up the dots” to tackle the sale and importation of knives, and the need to improve both data collection and understanding around knife crime.

INTERVIEW: Following the recent launch of the UK Government’s new Road Safety Strategy, former senior police officer Ruth Purdie, CEO of the Road Safety Trust, spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the need for more support for policing’s role in preventing and detecting crime on the roads, alongside “system-wide” change, better sharing of best practice and greater use of technology, if the strategy is to be implemented effectively.

FEATURE: The latest National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised crime, published by the UK’s National Crime Agency, highlights the potential for conflicts and wider “geopolitical instability” to provide “fertile ground” for exploitation by organised crime groups (OCGs), while the growth in online crime and the impact of overseas OCGs on UK communities and security represent significant threats, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A study into the policing of organised crime in London by Open University Criminologist Dr Sarah Hutton suggests that while “disruption” has become a central metric in UK law enforcements efforts to tackle organised crime, it is a concept that is rarely measured or validated, resulting in a claim rather than proving a demonstrable reduction in criminality, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: A decade after forced marriage was first criminalised and more than 30 years after state-level hate crime legislation was introduced, rates of prosecution in Australia remain low compared to the UK; strategy and reform consultant Kavitha Vipulananda explores the differences in approach between the two jurisdictions, and suggests four steps Australia could take to improve outcomes for victim-survivors of both offences.

FEATURE: The latest Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment from INTERPOL highlights the “industrialisation” of transnational financial fraud and the likelihood that offending will offending “escalate significantly” over the next five years as artificial intelligence leads to easier entry for criminal networks, prompting the agency to set out a range of initiatives to tackle the threat, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: Five women are murdered in the US every day by a current, former or estranged intimate partner, with intimate partner violence also a leading cause of death of American children; Pennsylvania State University Assistant Professor Dr Kathryn Spearman argues that, with clear warning signs of the predictable and therefore preventable behavior that leads to domestic homicides, the recognition and response of courts, communities and law enforcement to such red flags needs to be better.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth highlights the opportunities presented by a new Young Leaders in National Security Fellowship offered by the Counter Extremism Group, which aims to identify, nurture, and guide young people – including students, graduates, and young police officers and police staff – interested in counter-terrorism and counter-extremism issues.

INTERVIEW: A new Police Public Safety Officer (PPSO) role has been created by Northern Territory Police Force to patrol public transport, government housing projects and anti-social behaviour hotspots, in a bid to improve visibility, target low-level crime and free up general duties officers to focus on more serious offending, as Acting Assistant Commissioner Brendan Muldoon explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

INTERVIEW: An Edinburgh Napier University evaluation of Police Scotland’s roll-out of Naloxone found the approach had helped to save lives and build trust with communities; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to two of those involved in the evaluation, Visiting Professor and former Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie, and Dr Inga Heyman, Associate Professor of Policing and Public Health, who argue that the more people should be training and equipped with the anti-overdose drug.

FEATURE: UK policing’s current national training approach to child criminal exploitation (CCE) and criminal exploitation (CE) is “largely deficient”, according to a new report from the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, which also calls for a shift from an enforcement lens to one of vulnerability to tackle CCE/CE and criminal exploitation in drug markets, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new report by Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland into how the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the wider criminal justice system recognises, assesses and responds to child criminal exploitation highlights the “inconsistent and, in many respects, inadequate” responses, and urges the PSNI to improve its delivery model as well as recoding and monitoring systems to better protect children targeted by paramilitary groups and criminals, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.