Personnel

INTERVIEW: With concerns over the rise in poor mental health in policing, new research by criminologist and former police officer Dr Mark Brain, now an Associate Lecturer at the University of the West of England, suggests that far from being a product of exposure to traumatic incidents, mental ill-health in policing is largely driven by organisational issues such as poor management of professional standards investigations and an ongoing organisational “machismo” culture, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: Victim and witness statements can play a vital role in shaping an investigation, but new research from Dr Cody Porter of the University of the West of England and Dr Mircea Zloteanu of King’s College London suggest that the emotionality of witnesses can unintentionally mislead decision-makers including police officers, especially when filtered through unconscious gendered expectations.

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.

INTERVIEW: Ahead of this month’s American Society of Evidence-Based Policing Conference, American University Associate Professor Dr Janice Iwama spoke to Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend about her research into how peer support programmes are designed and delivered in practice, the need to view them as part of wider organisational culture, and why such initiatives require ongoing attention to training and support.

OPINION: The future communications for the UK’s emergency services should not be a choice between TETRA or broadband, argues Ian Waddell Vice-President of International Managed & Support Services at Motorola Solutions, but both and more, with a hybrid solution that combines the best of tried and trusted capabilities with the latest technologies of today.

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.

OPINION: With proposed policing reform in England and Wales indicating a move towards a combination of a national police service, regional forces and local policing areas, Capgemini Director Jamie Robinson explores the experiences of the Dutch transition from regional police forces to the Dutch National Police in 2013, and considers what lessons there could be from the Netherlands for the UK’s reform process.

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.

OPINION: With police and law enforcement agencies increasingly looking to artificial intelligence (AI) to leverage benefits for public safety, former Colorado State Patrol chief Jim Wolfinbarger, now Vice-President of Real-Time Intelligence at Motorola Solutions, explores how role-based AI can help to convert disparate information into focused, actionable streams of intelligence that strengthen decision-making and risk management.

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.

ANALYSIS: With responsibility for the Police Race Action Plan (PRAP) for England and Wales now shifting from a central team to individual forces, Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass examines the impact and legacy of the work done over the past five years, and speaks to stakeholders about the role of leadership and how the PRAP should be shaping policing in the future.

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.

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.

FEATURE: In the latest in The Police Student series focusing on Community and Neighbourhood Policing, Policing Insight Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly focuses on problem-solving – including the evolution of problem-oriented policing and its relationship with neighbourhood policing, the importance of community engagement, and the impact of under-resourcing

INTERVIEW: Ahead of this week’s first UK National Response Policing Conference, ACC Matt Boyle, the National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Response Policing, spoke to Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend about changing perception of the response role as a specialism in its own right, the importance of response officers in the investigation process, and the need to recognise the role as the interaction where the public experience policing most directly.

OPINION: In the second in his series on UK policing’s software and IT archipelago, organisational psychologist Michael Stephenson explores what modernising actually looks like when the islands of the archipelago cannot simply be rebuilt from scratch, including the constraints to modernisation, how they can be navigated, the police reform process as leverage, and what an effective and realistic modernisation sequence should look like.

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.