Police forces

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) David Sidwick is the joint lead on addiction and substance misuse for the Association of PCCs; on a recent leg of the Policing Friendship Walking Tour he explained to Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix how the death of a close friend’s teenage daughter through an MDMA overdose, as well as his own career in pharmaceuticals, had motivated him to take up the role.

FEATURE: With the latest figures for assaults on police in the UK showing a 20% increase on the previous year, the effects of violence on officers – and how they are supported – are key concerns; Operation Hampshire, the initiative to improve the service’s response to officer assaults, was the subject of a recent @WeCops Twitter Chat, summarised here by the scheme’s National Co-ordinator, Chief Inspector Dave Brewster, one of the hosts of the debate.

ANALYSIS: The introduction of body-worn cameras among US police forces and the subsequent improvement in evidential quality has helped to reduce the racial disparity in the response to complaints about police misconduct, according to new research by Professors Suat Cubukcu, Erdal Tekin, Nusret Sahin and Volkan Topalli.

FEATURE: The police use of Taser has been a topic of much debate, with widening training and deployment, the intense scrutiny, and a lack of understanding about less lethal weapons among both the media and the public some of the key issues; many of those points were raised during a recent #WeCops debate on less lethal weapons, which is summarised in this article by PC Francesca Tamblyn, Taser Lead Instructor for Dorset Police and one of the hosts of the debate.

OPINION: Last week’s joint National Police Chief’s Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners summit once again shone the spotlight on trust and confidence in policing, particularly in relation to violence against women and girls; below is a full transcript of the speech by Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird, one of the key speakers at the event.

ANALYSIS: Last month the Australian Border Force and Australian Federal Police seized 450kgs of heroin from a shipping container in Melbourne; but the huge seizure should be seen as a sign that the approach focused on policing and criminal justice is not working, as well as an indication of the scale of the challenge facing the country’s fight against narcotics, explains Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Dr Teagan Westendorf.

ANALYSIS: With an increasingly complex crime landscape, police agencies are adopting more data-driven approaches – but what is the crime analysts’ view of the data they are working with? Saskatoon Police Service Divisional Crime Analyst John Ng* worked with Ontario Tech University Associate Professors Dr Christopher O’Connor and Dr Tyler Frederick, and PhD candidate Dallas Hill, to explore Canadian crime analysts’ perspectives on the quality, collection and use of police data.

OPINION: While policing in the UK has made steps towards improving gender inclusion, the primary carer role often taken on by women means many are forced to sacrifice their careers because of a lack of flexibility in the workplace; Devon and Cornwall Police Chief Superintendent Jim Gale believes a more sensible approach to part-time and hybrid working and increased opportunities for job sharing could help the service improve female inclusion at all ranks.

Round-table: Representatives from UK policing, stakeholders and suppliers praised the “miracle job” done by the service in response to the pandemic, and urged police leaders and the Government to ensure the momentum of transformational IT change continues post-Covid, as they debated the key policing ICT issues at a round-table discussion organised by Policing Insight Events in association with Virgin Media Business.

FEATURE: Pandemic lockdowns and remote working have fuelled a significant growth in cyber crime, according to Europol’s latest Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment, with fraud and grooming – including the distribution of explicit self-generated material – presenting major challenges for investigators; Policing Insight Deputy Editor Sarah Gibbons looks at the key threats highlighted in the report, and what steps policing can take to mitigate them.

OPINION: UK policing has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks – particularly in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, and the focus on misogyny and violence against women and girls – and the service’s efforts to put out the right message have often fallen short; in this opinion piece Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend, a specialist in crisis communications, urges forces to recognise the power of language and gain a better understanding of their audience.

FEATURE: A recently launched project in Avon and Somerset aims to divert women away from short-term custodial sentences and break the offending cycle which sees many females drawn into the criminal justice system; Policing Insight Deputy Editor Sarah Gibbons takes a closer look at the Court Up scheme

FEATURE: The killing of George Floyd and the ongoing debate about police reform pushed Minneapolis Police Department firmly into the spotlight, and prompted a recent vote on significant changes to policing in the city; Professor Michelle Phelps of the University of Minnesota explored the background to why voters rejected the proposed changes, and what that decision means in the wider context of police reform.

INTERVIEW: Cheshire Detective Sergeant Mark Naylor has delivered many powerful presentations on the suffering of sexual abuse victims, but it is not until well into the sessions that he reveals the experiences he is discussing are his own; this award-winning officer spoke to Policing Insight Deputy Editor Sarah Gibbons about the emotional and mental impact of abuse, the need for victims to take back control, and how forces can improve the service they deliver.

ANALYSIS: A recent report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime highlighted that while success in countering organised crime relies on international co-operation, countries were increasingly turning to national solutions; Policing Insight's Chris Allen looks at the crime-fighting scenarios suggested by the report, and how likely they are to be adopted by countries around the world.

FEATURE: Amid concerns that officers experiencing the mental health impact of critical firearms incidents were not receiving enough ‘return to work’ support, New Zealand Police have a adopted a peer-led approach to post-incident reintegration; Dr Anna Sutton of the University of Waikato explained to delegates at the recent Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidence-Based Policing (ANZSEBP) Conference how ongoing research to evaluate the programme could help to improve reintegration for affected officers.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: National Police Chiefs’ Council Chair Martin Hewitt believes UK policing is facing a defining challenge in relation to public trust and confidence – one which will require officers and organisations to listen to and learn from those who experience prejudice – as he explained to Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix on a recent leg of the Policing Friendship Walking Tour.

OPINION: The UK has a lengthy tradition of problem-oriented policing (POP), but the enthusiasm for this long-term preventative approach has waxed and waned, and with it the impact of POP overall; however Professor Nick Tilley, a keen advocate, believes that a renewed commitment to the problem-solving mentality can reap benefits in enabling forces to meet many of the modern policing challenges.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Surrey Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, head of the NPCC Finance Co-ordination Committee, says this year’s pay freeze was a “bitter blow” for officers, but believes there are still plenty of opportunities to find efficiency gains in UK policing, as he explained to Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix during a recent leg of the Policing Friendship Walking Tour.

FEATURE: As the UK hospitality industry emerges from pandemic restrictions there have been widespread reports of a surge in drinks being spiked in clubs and bars, and drinkers even being injected; Associate Professor Lata Gautam of Anglia Ruskin University believes that while a lack of data makes determining the level of spiking difficult, two recent online surveys suggest worryingly high incidence, as well as significant under-reporting.

OPINION : Project Bluestone involves Avon and Somerset working with leading academics to assess and address the force's issues around rape investigations; Dr Emma Williams of the Open University, one of the academics involved with Bluestone, assesses the ongoing project and its potential.

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.

INTERVIEW: In the latest in a series of interviews with leading figures involved in the research and investigation of organised crime, Policing Insight’s Chris Allen spoke to Dr James Windle, a Criminology Lecturer at University College Cork, about situational crime prevention, suppressing opium cultivation, and how he sees organised crime and the illegal drugs market evolving over the next decade.

OPINION: The pre-join degree scheme seems to be the ‘forgotten’ recruitment route for UK policing, argues Nottingham Trent University Policing Lecturer Phil Rudkin, with only three forces currently ready to accept recruits from these programmes; but with up to 2,600 pre-join graduates likely to enter the police recruitment pool by 2025, it’s time for forces and higher-education institutions to work together to improve this entry pathway into policing.