Police forces

OPINION: With the UK Government’s levelling-up plans and goals to reduce homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime by 2030, police and crime commissioners and policy makers will be looking to evidence-based solutions to tackle crime; Jon Yates, Executive Director of the Youth Endowment Fund, believes the Fund’s toolkit could provide valuable resources for successfully targeting youth violence.

INTERVIEW: Ahead of next week’s London Policing College workshop on cybercrime and fraud, workshop chair Dr Stuart Hyde (the former Chief Constable of Cumbria and a cybercrime specialist) talked to Policing Insight about the need for an improved government response to the challenge, the importance of collaboration between industry and policing, and why Action Fraud is currently not fit for purpose.

OPINION: Over the last two decades, organised crime – and the motivations and modus operandi of its actors – has become much better understood, and the subject of a wide variety of books, with the best offering valuable insights for the public, police and academics alike; Policing Insight’s Chris Allen takes a look at some of the essential texts on organised crime, in time to add to your holiday reading list.

ANALYSIS: Over the past five years a series of drug deaths in Australia has highlighted the arrival of an increasing range of synthetic drugs, many originating from factories in China and India and ordered online; this article from the Lens, the research publication of Monash University, explores the forensic medicine efforts of ‘toxico-surveillance’ specialists to identify and track the influx of new illicit drugs, and the dangers they represent.

FEATURE: Police officers in the US are at higher risk of suicide than any other profession, but despite an increase in wellbeing programs across policing, evidence-based, data-driven approaches to tackle the issue and provide support are in short supply; the launch of the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection could be about to change that, as Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend reports.

ANALYSIS: The UK’s access to Horizon Europe’s research and innovation programme funding as an associate member – and with it the ability to undertake pioneering research into policing and security that has delivered real benefits to UK law enforcement – appears to be increasingly under threat, thanks to ongoing political wrangles over the Northern Ireland post-Brexit border arrangements, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

FEATURE: The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) recently launched its new Police Encounter Panels (PEPs) to provide feedback on the use of force by officers and build closer relationships with the community; MPS Inspector Zed Asghar spoke to Policing Insight’s Keith Potter about the aim of the PEPs, and how virtual reality technology was offering Panel members greater insight into the difficult decisions officers face.

INTERVIEW: Ahead of next week’s London Policing College workshop on tackling violence against women and girls, and the lessons learned from Operation Soteria Bluestone, workshop facilitator Parm Sandhu (a former Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent who specialised in VAWG) talked to Policing Insight about improving the sharing of best practice, the need to identify cost-neutral measures, and the internal police cultures that still need to be overcome.

FEATURE: Almost a third of women experiencing the menopause consider quitting their jobs because of the severity of their symptoms, yet employers including police forces have been slow to offer support and advice; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons looks at the efforts within Thames Valley Police to address those issues and ensure that its growing female workforce have the support they need.

OPINION: Despite the high murder rate in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi, few cases ever make it to the courts; Dr Douglas Lucas Kivoi of the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis believes that poor evidence gathering, police negligence and recklessness, a lack of forensic capability and claims of police involvement in extra-judicial killings are among the reasons behind the failure to solve so many murders, and sets out some key steps to address the issues.

INTERVIEW: In the second part of his interview with Policing Insight, Superintendents’ Association President Paul Fotheringham spoke to Keith Potter about the structural and operational challenges facing the rank, the pressures on measuring and improving performance, and the importance of focusing on wellbeing and good leadership.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Like many forces across the UK Cleveland Police struggled to manage rapidly increasing digital evidence. The collection of CCTV video alone required thousands of trips each week - a huge time and resource drain. The force also needed to comply with national requirements around sharing digital evidence, which was moving toward a digital model. With NICE Investigate, officers can now collect and share evidence through a fully electronic process.

FEATURE: New research has recommended that police forces in England and Wales should improve their awareness and responses to gambling-related harms after identifying custody suites as the ideal ‘gatekeepers’ to challenge the narratives about the nature of gambling-related crime, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.  

OPINION: In the same month that Lord Geidt resigned as ‘ethics adviser’ to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Government also published its response to proposals for the reform of data protection laws, advocating a seemingly light touch on the governance and scrutiny of the police use of technology; Dr Marion Oswald, Chair of the West Midlands Police Data Ethics Committee, believes the two topics are linked by the importance of accountability and standards.

FEATURE: Several UK police forces have pushed ahead with pilot schemes and the wider roll out of opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone for frontline officers, despite opposition from some staff associations; now a new report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has called for increased support and training for officers as part of a ‘national joined-up approach’ to its use, as Policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.

OPINION: Recent campaigns have led to longer sentences for those who assault emergency services workers, but a new report from Transform Justice analyses why such sanctions are not working; Transform Justice Director Penelope Gibbs believes better support for staff, improved training and alternative responses to those in mental health crisis may be more effective.

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.

FEATURE: With the scale of child sexual abuse in the UK reaching record levels, and offenders using encryption and other technology tools to carry out increasingly severe and abhorrent abuse, National Crime Agency Deputy Director Sarah Blight has urged law enforcement, government, industry and other stakeholders to develop a ‘whole of system response’ to the threat, as Policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.

OPINION: Former police officer and police and crime commissioner Martyn Underhill urges police forces in the UK to adopt and exploit the potential of existing technologies and systems to keep pace in the digital world – particularly in the face of ongoing financial challenges and budgetary constraints.

FEATURE: The recently published Police Race Action Plan has prompted more discussion around the issues of racial disparity and institutional racism in UK policing; but for Dr Kul Verma, a former officer and now a leadership coach and diversity and inclusion adviser, attempts to address issues around race in policing will be doomed to fail without brave conversations based on evidence rather than opinion.

OPINION: New race-based data released by Toronto Police Service has highlighted that nearly a third of all Indigenous people arrested were strip-searched, while one in every three people who were strip-searched were Black; Monika Lemke, a PhD candidate at Canada’s York University, argues that as well as the disproportionality, strip searches are ineffective and unnecessary, and should be stopped.

FEATURE: Organised crime groups (OCGs) are testing New Zealand’s reputation as one of the least corrupt countries in the world; Matt Chatterton of the New Zealand Police Association looks at the OCG challenges facing policing, and talks to Detective Inspector Paul Newman of the force’s National Organised Crime Group about the efforts being made to counter the threat.

INTERVIEW: As a number of cities across the US attempt to deal with an apparent rise in violent crime, Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend spoke to Prof Michael Smith of the University of Texas at San Antonio who, with colleagues from UTSA and in collaboration with the leadership and officers of Dallas PD, has developed an evidence-based plan to target violent crime that is already delivering results for the city.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: As a national force covering a broad swathe of rail lines and properties, the British Transport Police (BTP) faces unique policing challenges. That’s precisely why NICE Investigate is at the heart of everything BTP is doing to manage its digital evidence ecosystem moving forward. In the first of a series of case-studies highlighting NICE's work with UK police forces, read about how NICE is helping BTP streamline the flow of digital evidence and keep UK railways safe from crime, through digital transformation.