Personnel

FEATURE: This week is the first anniversary of Restorative Solutions delivering the Appropriate Adult Service for vulnerable adults in police custody across West Yorkshire, having launched the service on 1 June 2025; Volunteer Appropriate Adult Dr Kathryn Sharratt and Service Delivery Manager Kate Brooksbank provide an insight into the organisation’s partnership with West Yorkshire Police, the invaluable contribution of volunteers, and the positive difference their support can make to vulnerable adults in police custody.

INTERVIEW: Proposals for an Animal Protection Disclosure Scheme, known as Holly’s Law and modelled on Clare’s Law (the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme), could soon be debated in the UK Parliament; former police officer Mark Randell, a campaign manager at the Naturewatch Foundation, explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons why the link between animal abuse and coercive control and violence could be crucial in tackling domestic abuse, and how officers can play their part.

OPINION: With over 1.3 million domestic abuse-related incidents and crimes recorded by police in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, it’s a complex and challenging area for policing; postgraduate Evian Karlsen and Policing Lecturer Lee Curran of Liverpool John Moores University warn that amongst that complexity, male victims remain under-reported, under-recognised, and often underserved, with better training, challenging assumptions and improved partnerships the key to addressing the issues.

King's Birthday Honours: We are pleased to publish and recognise New Zealand policing recipients of the 2026 King's Birthday Honours. The team at Policing Insight offer our congratulations to Inspectors Ross Grantham and Neru Leifi and thank them for their service.

FEATURE: Mandatory training on autism awareness for police would equip officers with the skills needed to interact more effectively with neurodiverse communities, as well as increasing trusts and confidence, argues Edinburgh Napier University postgraduate student Victoria Paterson, whose own work with Police Scotland showed that officers “were really positive and wanted to get involved”, as she explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: The new Domestic Abuse Protection Order (DAPO) will bring together the best elements of the existing civil order regimes in England and Wales, providing a flexible court order that also has teeth, explain Joe Purshouse and Jamie Wilson of KBW Chambers in Leeds, who believe this “sea-change in the landscape of civil preventive orders” offers policing and legal teams an exceptionally powerful resource for disrupting perpetrators of domestic abuse and securing the safety of victims.

FEATURE: The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has been given six months to work with the Home Office to produce a long-term, costed IT strategy after the first agency-wide HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services inspection found that existing systems were “not fit for purpose”; the NCA has also been urged to address staff shortages that impact on analysis capabilities and act on workforce concerns over bullying, harassment and discrimination, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: Implicit bias training has become the default policy response to disproportionate use of force, but evidence suggests it changes knowledge, not behaviour; organisational psychologist Michael Stephenson looks to an unexpected source – the world of professional poker – for a more effective approach, grounded in neuroscience rather than sociology.

FEATURE: A study into building procedural justice in street-level drug law enforcement in Australia suggests that the decriminalisation of drug use and possession offences, expanding harm reduction approaches, and giving all alleged offenders the chance to tell their side of the story, could help to build positive interactions between officers and people who use drugs, as well as increasing the willingness of users to co-operate with police and abide by the law, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: Four months after the UK Government unveiled its proposals for the reform of policing in England and Wales, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett explores the challenges that the process is already facing, from concerns over accountability, governance and the uncertainty around police mergers, to questions over centralisation, the true of costs of reform, and whether the Government will have the political will or resilience to see the measures through to completion.

FEATURE: A lack of understanding around the management of sexual and violent offenders and child sexual abuse and exploitation teams, coupled with staff shortages and skills gaps, is damaging the wellbeing of officers and increasing the risk to the public, according to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, which is urging forces to stop neglecting “these important areas of policing” by refocusing on safeguarding and support at both force and national level.

OPINION: The ongoing legal proceedings against Queensland Police Service by an Indian Uber driver is the latest case to highlight a culture of racism and lack of accountability in this and other Australian forces, says strategy and reform consultant Kavitha Vipulananda, who argues that for policing in the country to earn the trust of the communities it serves – including growing and diverse migrant and Indigenous communities – “the cycle of incident, apology and impunity must be broken”.

OPINION: With ethics frequently bound to professional standards in UK policing, the current reform proposals offer an opportunity to reset the issue of ethics as one of aspiration rather than compliance, says police officer and ethics specialist Dr Richard Cockbain – but failure to do so could leave policing risk building a future “with a ceiling that was only ever meant to be the foundations”.

INNOVATION: The fully automated Trauma Tracker system launched by Avon and Somerset Police will enable line managers and wellbeing professionals to proactively manage workforce exposure to trauma, as well as giving officers and staff regular updates on the possible impact that traumatic incidents may have on their wellbeing, as Inspector Stuart King explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

INTERVIEW: Last year’s National Police Chiefs’ Council Innovation and Digital Summit and the subsequent proposals in the Government’s police reform white paper have put the development of technology firmly in focus for UK policing; Policing Insight’s Martin Buhagiar spoke to Humberside Chief Constable Chris Todd, Chair of the National Police Data and Analytics Board, about the tech opportunities offered by the planned reforms, the growing enthusiasm for better exploitation of data, and the need for intuitive solutions.

FEATURE: In the latest in The Police Student series focusing on Community and Neighbourhood Policing, Policing Insight Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly explores the background to partnership working in policing, the benefits such long-term relationships can bring, and the challenges – particularly around financial pressures – that can mean it’s often down to officers rather than organisations to build those trusting partnerships.

INTERVIEW: Warwickshire Police’s digital transformation over the past eight years has seen them acknowledged as a leader in many areas of police technology, and particularly the use of AI; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to the force’s Director of Data, Strategy & Technology, Stephen Russell, about the potential for AI in policing, the importance of measured development rather than a rush to “go fast and first”, and how the lessons of managing people translate to managing AI apps and agents.

OPINION: As debates continues about the Met Police’s use of the AI-based Palantir system to covertly identify corruption and misconduct among officers, Leeds Trinity University Policing Lecturer Adam Stokes, a former police officer, argues that one question which needs to be asked is not whether the algorithm can be trusted when it comes to supervision, but why the humans could not be.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The National Vetting Symposium returns for 1st to 2nd June at the Crowne Plaza in Stratford upon Avon with the theme "Protecting the roots in shifting ground – Transitioning good practice whilst embracing change"

INTERVIEW: In the latest in a series of interviews with leading figures involved in the research and investigation of organised crime (OC), Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen spoke to Former West Midlands Police Detective Inspector Dr David Wilson and now West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit lead for modern slavery and organised immigration crime (MSOIC), and a recognised expert in Chinese OC, about the reach of Chinese OC, the growth of state-sponsored crime, and the challenges of policing OC with a 43-force structure.

Canadian Order of Merit: We are pleased to publish and recognise the recipients of the 2026 Canadian Order of Merit of the Police Forces. The team at Policing Insight offer our congratulations and thank all the recipients for their service and contribution to their communities.

FEATURE: A report by Canada’s Auditor General into recruitment for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) highlights that despite application numbers exceeding targets, delays in processing has seen many would-be recruits drop out, and a lack of accurate data around the staffing gaps that need to be filled, leaving the RCMP short of more than 3,000 officers, which could impact police officer morale and wellness while increasing risks to public safety and national security, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

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.