Early intervention

OPINION: Australia is losing the fight to disrupt illicit drug supply chains – not for lack of effort, but because it needs additional weapons and new approaches – warns Dr John Coyne, Director of National Security Programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who calls for a shift towards measuring law enforcement successes against disruption, deterrence and network degradation, rather than arrests, seizures and prosecutions.

ANALYSIS: The UK Government’s latest Wastewater Analysis Programme report has highlighted an estimated 85% increase in ketamine use, prompting National Police Chiefs’ Council National Drugs Co-ordinator Mark Lay to call for more data sharing and closer collaboration between police and other agencies to make young people more aware of the dangers of the drug, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: Chief constables, police and crime commissioners, and directors of public health across England and Wales have been sent new guidance and warnings about the dangers of a potential influx of harmful new drugs – including synthetic opioids – which could present greater risks to “those who are drug-naive or experimenting for the first time” at this summer’s music festivals, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: While the recent Government Spending Review left many chief constables, forces and police and crime commissioners in England and Wales saying the increase in police spending wasn’t enough, University of Leeds Professor of Crime Science Graham Farrell argues that more money and more officers doesn’t always lead to a fall in crime, with crime prevention and reducing crime opportunities by working with businesses, suppliers and manufacturers often a more effective approach.

ANALYSIS: After nearly two decades of focus, discussion and research, mental health and wellbeing among British police officers and staff shows little improvement; Professor Emma Williams and Associate Professor Sarah-Jane Lennie of the Centre of Excellence for Equities in Uniformed Public Services argue that, juxtaposed with the persistent and challenging issues related to police recruitment, retention, presenteeism and long-term sickness, the evidence suggests a growing mental health crisis within British policing.

OPINION: With the training schedule for the new Neighbourhood Policing Pathway (NPP) beginning next month, and first measures under the new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee due to be in place across England and Wales in July, former South Wales Police detective Steve Dodd, a subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation, looks at the opportunities and challenges for the NPP, and the role of community intelligence-led policing methodology within it.

FEATURE: New research exploring the impact of a police-sent, low-cost text message ‘nudge’ reminding Class A drugs offenders to attend a mandatory drug assessment has highlighted the increased chances of helping offenders to “make it through the door” towards treatment, improving compliance and potentially reducing recidivism and offending, reports Policing Insight’s Keith Potter.

OPINION: Having spent more than 20 years advising and supporting police forces and stakeholders in the UK on how to bring meaningful change to police-community relations, Montell Neufville, Chair of the Joint Protective Services (Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Hertfordshire Police) Scrutiny Panel and a National Advisory Group member of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, shares his top tips on the steps police and crime commissioners and mayors can take to improve trust between forces and the communities they serve.

FEATURE: Adopting and implementing a ‘carrot and stick’ approach to those likely to be drawn into organised crime groups (OCGs) – by coupling increased surveillance and police action with the opportunity for rehabilitation and pathways out of crime – can prevent young people from entering OCGs, reduce recidivism, disrupt gang activity, and increase arrests of established members, according to the results of a pilot scheme by West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has launched new guidance on how forces and violence reduction units can adopt and implement the multi-agency focused deterrence (FD) approach to tackle serious violence, which international research shows has cut crime by an average 33%; the YEF’s Dr Stevie-Jade Hardy spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about how FD works, the guidance and ‘on the ground’ support offered by the YEF, and ongoing evaluations of the scheme in the UK.

OPINION: In the second in a regular series of articles and opinion pieces from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell, Chair of the APCC, looks at the measures included in the Crime and Policing Bill currently progressing through Parliament, and the steps that PCCs, PFCCs and deputy mayors will play in helping to ensure those changes are delivered for the benefit of local communities.

INTERVIEW: A review of the connections between sexual exposure and contact sexual offending is calling for non-contact sexual offences to be handled by police with the same focus and response as rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO), as the impact on victims is still significant, and many of those offenders who go on to commit RASSO have previously carried out non-contact sexual offences, as London Metropolitan University Professor Dr Fiona Vera-Grey (one of the report’s authors) told Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: When it comes to research and services for victims of adolescent domestic abuse (ADA), those aged under 16 are often overlooked by policies that focus on the adult domestic abuse (DA) agenda; Gloucestershire Deputy Chief Constable Katy Barrow-Grint and City St George’s, University of London Senior Researcher Dr Ruth Weir spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about new efforts to identify the scale and nature of the problem, and encouraging police forces to use technology to extract ADA data.

ANALYSIS: With illicit drug use increasing by 20% over the past decade, University of York Honorary Fellow and Associate Professor Ian Hamilton looks at the scale of the harm done by drugs around the world, the changing trends in supply and demand, and calls for a “complete shift” in the way governments and societies recognise and respond to what has become a global threat.

OPINION: In the first in a new regular series of articles and opinion pieces from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell, Chair of the APCC, highlights the PCC-based initiatives underway across England and Wales to reduce crime and improve community safety, particularly focusing on crime prevention and partnership working, with new research published this week underlining the effectiveness of multi-agency, evidence-based collaboration.

INNOVATION: Operation Makesafe is the nationwide policing initiative working with hotels and accommodation providers across England and Wales to target and prevent premises being used for child sexual exploitation (CSE); Richard Fewkes, Director of the Hydrant Programme and the CSE Taskforce, explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about how the initiative works, and the potential to expand to other sectors including fast-food outlets, taxi companies and vape shops.

FEATURE: An active bystander training project launched by the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner has led to a 125% increase in the likelihood of participants challenging sexist comments online, and a greater understanding and awareness of sexual harassment; the project now looks set to expand from police and stakeholder organisations into other public sector bodies as well as the private sector, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: Chief Fady Dagher of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (Montreal City Police) is looking to transform the relationship between police and the communities they serve, with a range of groundbreaking initiatives – including an Immersion Programme where officers live with host families to gain a better understanding and insight into the everyday challenges they face – designed to create a new policing culture and more cohesive communities, as he explained to Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend.

INTERVIEW: Having embarked on a policing career out of a strong desire to be “the person who helped”, Barrie Police Service Chief Rich Johnston found that evidence-based policing (EBP) instilled a real passion to make policing smarter, safer, and more transparent; and as he explained to Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood, while adopting and implementing an EBP philosophy has its challenges, it offers significant potential for positive transformation.

ANALYSIS: An evaluation of a successful street outreach programme – pioneered by Leicestershire Police, but using community outreach staff rather than uniformed officers – has highlighted a significant drop in both the frequency and severity of offences in several city centre crime hotspot areas, as well as considerable financial savings, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: New research from the University of Calgary shows that three-quarters of men charged with domestic violence (DV) have already interacted with police at least once, with two thirds showing a clear trajectory of increasing police interactions in the lead up to their DV charge; Associate Professor Lana Wells believes this data around perpetrators offers an opportunity to intervene early and prevent the escalation of violence.

INNOVATION: With domestic abuse (DA) now recognised as a policing priority for UK forces, a new approach to tackling the issue has been launched by Dyfed Powys Police, with neighbourhood policing teams adopting the 4Ps model (prepare, protect, prevent, pursue) usually associated with terrorism and organised crime to provide an improved service to medium-risk DA victims and target offenders more effectively, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The ‘It Does Matter’ campaign – launched jointly by Thames Valley Police and campaigner Lisa Squire, whose daughter Libby was murdered by a sexual predator – aims to encourage reporting of non-contact sexual crimes to prevent offenders from escalating to more dangerous behaviour; now the force is hoping to share the campaign and its resources more widely with police colleagues and other agencies, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: With cuckooing – the exploitation of vulnerable people by drug gangs who take over their home – not currently classified by the Home Office as a specific crime, the true scale of the problem in the UK remains unclear; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to North-West Regional County Lines Co-ordinator DI Adam Norton, and Intelligence Analyst and PhD candidate Ruth Lewin, about the nature of the crime, and what more can be done to identify and improve support for victims while also strengthening enforcement.