Police forces - Europe

FEATURE: A new report into barriers preventing An Garda Siochána officers from engaging with mental health support warns that a police culture that stigmatises mental health issues, fears over the impact on career progression, and other concerns about trust and confidentiality, are leading to officers “toughing it out” amid deteriorating conditions – despite the fact that support provision in the force is at the best level researchers have seen in more than 30 years, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: In the wake of the trial and conviction of a Nazi ‘virtual’ terrorist cell in Sheffield for planning attacks on mosques and synagogues in England, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the lessons learned from the European PROTECTOR initiative, which highlighted the importance of collaboration and co-operation between law enforcement, faith communities, local authorities and other partners in improving the security of religious sites and places of worship.

ANALYSIS: Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen examines the findings of a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime into maritime drug trafficking, including the scale of the challenge, the available resources and logistical approaches of organised crime groups, and what steps could be taken to improve law enforcement’s efforts to tackle the traffickers.

FEATURE: A new report from Europol exploring “biometric vulnerabilities” and the need to protect against potential exploitation by criminals has called on law enforcement agencies to work with experts in biometrics and cybersecurity from the private sector to safeguard biometric systems, as well as increasing data sharing around potential attacks to stay “on the front foot” in the battle with criminal actors, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: A new report assessing the impact of drug-related serious and organised crime in the Netherlands has highlighted concerns around poly-drug production and trafficking by gangs, the growing collaboration between criminal networks, and the increase in production of new psychoactive substances destined both for Dutch users and those in the UK wider Europe, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A review of public order policing in Ireland published by the Garda Síochána Policing Authority (now the Policing and Community Safety Authority) has highlighted a shortage of officers and training, outdated policies, the need for more support for the frontline from managers, and inconsistency and lack of understanding among senior operational ranks about the role of public order policing, as key concerns that need to be addressed, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new report into artificial intelligence (AI) and online crime, published by the Alan Turing Institute, has warned that UK policing needs to “get serious” about the threat posed by AI or risk a rapidly escalating problem, with calls for a new taskforce to be based in the National Crime Agency to work with national security and industry partners to tackle the threat, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: With the three-year European PERIVALLON initiative – which aims to build a better intelligence picture of organised environmental crime, and develop tools and solutions to combat it – drawing to a close later this year, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the work of the project so far, and what more needs to be done by law enforcement and others to tackle the problem.

OPINION: ‘Lone-actor’ attacks carried out by individuals without any direct affiliation to a terrorist group have become increasingly common in Europe; University of St Andrews Senior Lecturer Dr Diego Muro and PhD candidate Ovidiu Craciunas look at the difficulties in accurately defining and preventing such attacks, as well as how a better understanding of the behaviour and motivations of previous lone actors can help to address future threats.

ANALYSIS: With police officers in the UK and Ireland operating under immense pressures, University of the West of England Senior Lecturers Dr Cody Porter and Dr Paul Gavin share findings from their recent research projects into specific sources of stress and its profound impacts on officers’ mental health in both jurisdictions, and call for a shift in the way mental health is treated – “not as an afterthought, but as an operational priority”.

FEATURE: Following an inspection into the force’s prevention, protection and prosecution of domestic abuse, and the support for victims, a new report by the Garda Síochána Inspectorate (now the Policing and Community Safety Authority) calls for more multi-agency measures, better management of offenders and the adoption of a force-wide domestic abuse strategy, among more than 50 recommendations aimed at improving current approaches, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the continuing growth in pharmaceutical crime, highlighted by a recent Europol report which suggests that the proliferation in fake and sub-standard medicines prompted by Covid-19 has continued and expanded since the end of the pandemic, with co-operation and intelligence sharing among police and the private sector one of the key steps to tackling the crime.

ANALYSIS: Recent arrests and seizures suggest drug traffickers are increasingly switching to chemically concealed cocaine (CCC) to move tonnes of shipments around the world, largely undetected; in the third in a series of articles on CCC and organised crime, Policing Insight’s Chris Dalby looks at growth of extraction labs across Europe and into the UK, the wealth of evidence, information and intelligence that the discovery of such labs can provide, and the vital role of forensic investigations.

FEATURE: The latest report on the MDMA drugs market, published by Europol and the European Union Drugs Agency, points to increased European production with significant health and environmental impacts, as well as EU criminal gangs reversing traditional cocaine routes to export MDMA to South America and Asia – in some cases bartering their product for other drugs – as Policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.

ANALYSIS: The global trade in illicit drugs is estimated to be worth at least half a trillion US dollars, much of which is laundered under the radar of law enforcement and the media; Bournemouth University Lecturer in Criminology Dr Mark Berry, and University of the West of Scotland Senior Lecturer Dr R.V. Gundur, take an in-depth look at money laundering in the drug trade, and explain why law enforcement and governments should be focusing on money as well as drugs.

FEATURE: With retention of officers a major challenge for police services around the world, research by Sergeant Jessica Mullen of the London Police Service in Ontario highlights the scale of the problem, the reasons behind officer departures and the disparity between who is leaving, and the need for police agencies to conduct exit interviews and increase data collection to improve understanding of the issues, as Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood reports.

INNOVATION: A new Winston Churchill Trust report exploring the international policing responses to cybercrime, written by Queensland Police Service Detective Chief Inspector Michael Newman, has highlighted a range of learning opportunities and practical takeaways around prevention, detection, investigation, and capability to improve Australia’s law enforcement efforts to target cybercriminals, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: Europol’s recently published 2025 Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA) highlighted the evolving trends of SOC on the international stage; former South Wales Police detective Steve Dodd, a subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation and advocate of the community intelligence-led policing methodology, argues that the SOCTA also reinforces the key role that frontline officers and the Neighbourhood Policing Pathway have to play in tackling that SOC threat.

ANALYSIS: The latest Europol Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA), published this month, highlights the changing face of organised crime, and emerging methods and tactics adopted by organised crime groups (OCGs) around the world; Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen looks at some of the key themes from the report, including the increasing use of technology by OCGs, the collaboration and co-operation between criminals, and how OCGs are operating on a business model.

ANALYSIS: Recent arrests and seizures suggest drug traffickers are increasingly switching to chemically concealed cocaine (CCC) to move tonnes of shipments around the world, largely undetected; in the second in a series of articles on CCC and organised crime, Policing Insight’s Chris Dalby looks at the processes involved in chemical concealment and extraction, what law enforcement can look for to identify extraction labs, and the struggles facing traditional techniques of detection as well as some new, effective methods.

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FEATURE: A new Europol and Eurojust report on the challenges of tackling cybercrime has highlighted the huge volumes and difficult access to data, increasingly sophisticated anonymising measures deployed by criminals, and the legal and logistical difficulties of cross-border investigations as some of the key barriers for law enforcement, despite the “progressive strides” made by agencies and governments to address the issues, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) making the technology both more available and easier to use, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at law enforcement efforts to tackle AI-generated online child sexual abuse material – including last month’s success of Operation Cumberland, involving European, UK, Australian and New Zealand forces – as well as EU steps to tackle other damaging AI-generated online content.

FEATURE: Last month saw joint calls from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, College of Police and Counter-Terrorism Policing for UK policing to be given more freedom to share details around investigations that could help to quell the online misinformation fuelling violence and disorder; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the challenges around sharing of information, as well as the artificial intelligence tools that can help to tackle misinformation.