New South Wales Police Force - AUS

JOB ADVERTISEMENT: Australia's Charles Sturt University is seeking a new Head for the School of Policing Studies. The school is Australia's leading provider of police recruit level training with the University and the NSW Police Force having a unique partnership to design, develop and deliver tertiary courses in policing. Closing Date: 11pm, 24 May 2023 Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST).

FEATURE: The theft of livestock is a serious and growing problem in Australia, with large-scale and sophisticated thefts are being reported with increasing frequency; Kyle J D Mulrooney and Alistair Harkness, Co-directors of the Centre for Rural Criminology at the University of New England, explore the scale of the problem as well as highlighting new technologies which could help to tackle the challenge.

LONG READ: The Home Secretary’s recent call for a review of entry methods into UK policing is the latest twist in the policing degree debate; Nottingham Trent University lecturers Georg Tangen and Phil Rudkin, both former police officers, argue that the consensus of evidence to date shows policing does benefit from a degree level of education, and that the ‘loudest dissenters’ of the degree programme may be representative of the most criticised policing cultures and attitudes.

LONG READ: Despite four decades of recognition of the challenges a policing career poses to officers’ mental health and wellbeing, police organisations still seem to struggle to deliver an effective response for their workforce; new research by Policing Insight’s Dr Alan Beckley and colleagues at the University of Technology Sydney highlights the nature and scale of those challenges, and will explore what interventions work best.

Australia Day Honours: We are pleased to publish and recognise the police recipients of the 2023 Australia Day Honours. The team at Policing Insight offer our congratulations and thank all the recipients for their service and contribution to their communities.

OPINION: The Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (ANZPAA) has been at the forefront of identifying new and ongoing challenges for law enforcement, as well as the tools, techniques and guidance required to enable officers to meet them; ANZPAA CEO Dr Tracey Green outlines some of the key issues policing will be facing over 2023, and how the Agency is working with practitioners, stakeholders and others to deliver solutions.

LONG READ: The emergency services response to the flooding in Australia’s Northern Rivers region, which began in February and remains ongoing, has been subject to close scrutiny and two major independent inquiries; Policing Insight’s Alan Beckley examines some of the key findings and recommendations from the two inquiry reports, and considers their implications for policing in the region.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Presented by the Australian and New Zealand Police Commissioners and supported by Policing Insight as Global Media Partner, this 2-day ANZPAA Police Conference 2022 (PC22) will demonstrate how innovation can be used to ‘navigate the next generation of policing’.

INTERVIEW: Against a backdrop of violent arrests and oppressive responses in the 1970s, New South Wales Police has had a difficult relationship with the LGBTQ+ community; Policing Insight Contributing Editor Sarah Gibbons spoke to NSW Assistant Commissioner Gelina Talbot about the journey the force has been on to rebuild relationships, addressing equality and diversity issues internally, and her own Leadership Award for LGBTQ+ inclusion.

INTERVIEW: With a career combining operational policing and complex investigation with academia, Dr Tracey Green recently took up her post as CEO of the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency with greater insight than most into the demands facing law enforcement; she spoke to Policing Insight Editor Keith Potter about the Agency’s work on immediate and long-term policing challenges, the importance of sharing good practice, and the benefits of collaboration between police and academics.

OPINION: Recent operations by the Australian Federal Police against organised crime have brought the activities of the ‘ndrangheta Calabrian mafia under the spotlight; but Professor of Criminology Dr Anna Sergi argues that the organisation has been well-established across Australia for many decades, and any attempt to take the ‘ndrangheta seriously will require sustained political will and resources, rather than a sporadic focus on drug importation.

ANALYSIS: Many ex-prisoners end up in the vicious cycle of homelessness, reoffending and reincarceration; but new research by academics from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, the University of Tasmania and Melbourne’s RMIT University indicates that providing public housing for those released from prison could cut crime and reduce criminal justice costs.

FEATURE: A Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) was used by ACT officers in Canberra last week as part of the policing operation dealing with vaccine mandate protests, prompting a range of concerns and claims about the damage done by the device; composer, artist and sonic expert Lawrence English, a Research Fellow at Queensland’s Griffith University, explains the workings and limitations of LRADs.

Australia Day Honours: We are pleased to publish and recognise the policing and criminal justice recipients of the 2022 Australia Day Honours. The team at Policing Insight offer our congratulations and thank all the recipients for their service and contribution to their communities, particularly in these challenging times.

LONG READ: The death of George Floyd shone the spotlight strongly on police use of force, but many police services and departments had already recognised concerns and were attempting to address the issue; however, the lack of data on the effectiveness of training in areas such as de-escalation have left it difficult to identify what works and why, as Policing Insight Contributing Editor Tina Orr-Munro reports.

ANALYSIS: High-harm domestic abuse offenders are likely to have a criminal record and several police interactions before they are first reported for partner violence – and a small number go on to cause disproportionate harm – so could algorithms and machine learning help to target them early? This was one of the key questions considered by New South Wales Police Superintendent Andrew Hurst at last week’s rescheduled Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidence-Based Policing conference.

OPINION: The number of fatal police shootings in Australia reached a record high in 2019-20, against a backdrop of historically low levels of homicide and a general decline in crime; Dr Terry Goldsworthy of Bond University, who spent 28 years as a serving officer in Australia, believes that while policing is an inherently dangerous occupation, forces must avoid adopting an enforcement-only mentality.

OPINION: The wide-ranging debate about responses to violence against women in Australia has included proposals for all women police stations; but researchers Dr Amanda Porter (University of Melbourne), journalist Ann Deslandes, Dr Crystal McKinnon (RMIT University) and Dr Marlene Longbottom (University of Wollongong) believe such a move is likely to be ineffective in addressing the real issues, particularly for females in Indigenous communities.

Feature: To maximise the chances of success for evidence-based policing strategies, the implementation phase should be active and planned rather than left to chance. Continuing our coverage of the 2021 Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidence Based Policing Conference, Policing Insight's deputy editor Sarah Gibbons reports on where the focus should lie to offer new interventions the best chance of being embedded as 'business as usual'.

OPINION: There are calls from some quarters in Australia for the introduction of ‘negligent rape’, based on a ‘recklessness’ towards the consent of the victim, rather than deliberately disregarding the lack of consent; but Dr Rachael Burgin of Swinburne University of Technology, University of Sydney PhD student Bri Lee, and Professor Jonathan Crowe of Bond University argue that such a move would create a rape ‘hierarchy’ that is both wrong and offensive.

OPINION: While the potential evidential benefits of police body-worn cameras are increasingly clear, inconsistencies in their use and oversight threaten to limit their positive impact; Griffith University Lecturers Robyn Blewer and Ronald Behlau believe regulation leading to more effective, consistent use, coupled with independent oversight, is the way forward.

ANALYSIS: Crime on farms can have a damaging effect on both the lives and wellbeing of farmers and their families, and on the survival of farming businesses; now new approaches adopted by New South Wales Police to target such crimes, encourage reporting and support the rural community are having a positive impact, as Senior Lecturers Kyle Mulrooney and Alistair Harkness of the University of New England explain.

Queen's Birthday Honours: We are pleased to publish and recognise the policing and criminal justice recipients of the Queen's Birthday Honours in Australia and New Zealand. The team at Policing Insight offer our congratulations and thank all the recipients for their incredible service protecting the public, supporting victims, minimising reoffending and reducing crime.

Analysis: Hateful extremism must be addressed before it manifests itself as violent extremism – as unfolded in the 2019 Christchurch massacre in New Zealand – argues Professor Greg Barton, whose analysis of the Australian response to extremism calls for groups espousing hate that do not reach the threshold of criminality to be tackled, and new ways for police to record complaints that capture hate motivations.