Police management

ANALYSIS: Within days of the COVID-19 lockdown being announced in the UK, crime analysts were making predictions about its impact on criminal behaviour; so were they right? Professor Graham Farrell, Dr Sam Langton and Data Scientist Anthony Dixon of the School of Law at the University of Leeds examine the crime figures and trends from the first six months of the pandemic.

OPINION: A digital categorisation tool is now in use in prisons in an effort to reduce crime on the wings and in wider society; but as a new Police Foundation discussion document highlights, the use of police intelligence data as the basis for prisoner ‘risk ratings’ raises concerns over accuracy, bias and transparency, as the Foundation’s Director, Rick Muir, explains.

OPINION: Since the advent of civilian rule in Nigeria, no police unit has been as severely criticised as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad; Dr Lanre Ikuteyijo explains the unit’s origin, mandate, achievements and governance, and why the recent decision to disband the squad still falls short of what needs to be done to end bad policing in the country.

OPINION: In the third in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, independent cyber and security consultant Graeme McGowan explains why the move of millions of employees to remote online working in response to the coronavirus could lead to a cybercrime legacy of that lasts long after any lockdown is over.

OPINION: The cumulative trauma suffered by police and other first responders regularly exposed to serious injury, death and immediate threat can cause high levels of PTSD as well as depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal thoughts; but as psychiatrist Professor Arash Javanbakht explains, help is out there – and first responders and their families deserve to be happy.

OPINION: The coronavirus pandemic has affected all areas of society, and all facets of policing; in the second in a series of articles linked to this month’s Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, Polly Harrar, Joint Chair of the Met’s Harmful Practices Working Group and Founder of national BAME specialist charity The Sharan Project, shares her experiences of the policing response to harmful practices in the COVID-19 era.

FEATURE: Faced with further austerity measures, Bedfordshire Police rejected another morale-sapping restructure and turned instead to management consultants PwC; Sarah Gibbons reports on how the resulting award-winning approach has led to performance improvement, £7m of reinvested savings and a legacy for the long term.

Feature: In the wake of the recent terrorist attack in France and British travellers to the country being warned another attack is highly likely, Policing Insight contributor Andrew Staniforth discusses how France is seeking to combat this very real threat.

ANALYSIS: In their second of two articles marking the centenary of the Baird Committee Report, which recommended that women should be employed as sworn police officers across England and Wales, Dr Wendy Laverick and Professor Peter Joyce look at the role of women of women in policing since the 1980s to today – including discrimination, the Gender Agenda and contemporary thinking.

OPINION: This month the UK Home Secretary has instructed the HMICFRS to carry out a thematic inspection of public order policing; crowd policing expert and former police Chief Superintendent Owen West looks at current guidance on the issue, and why the political context of this decision raises concerns over the curtailing of democratic rights.

Analysis: Jamie Clinch, a former Masters student in Forensic Psychology, discusses the findings of research she conducted into the effectiveness of alcohol-related violence intervention programmes as part of a collaboration between Coventry University and West Midlands Police.

UCL COVID-19 SERIES: In this latest in the series of COVID-19 briefing papers published by UCL’s Jill Dando Institute, Professor Graham Farrell of the University of Leeds highlights the changing nature of pandemic crime, from furlough fraud and fake PPE to cybercrime and civil law breaches.

FEATURE: The International Crime Coordination Centre was set up to lead UK policing’s fight against transnational crime, through Brexit and beyond; Policing Insight Contributing Editor Tina Orr Munro talks to ICCC Head, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Martin, about the Centre’s work to date, the threat from globalised criminality, and the challenge of making the investigation of international crime ‘business as usual’.

OPINION: Adrian Timberlake, chief technical officer at 7Technologies, examines the potential uses of new technology in border control and missing person identification, and how intelligent technologies could help to combat modern slavery.

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ANALYSIS: There have been widespread calls for police reform in the United States, but what shape should that reform take, and how effective can it be? Professor Ronald Weitzer of George Washington University looks at what steps have been taken so far, what has – and hasn’t – worked, and the opportunities for further evidence-based reform.

INTERVIEW: Dubai Police recently became the first force to win seven IACP awards in one year, recognised for its work in areas ranging from forensics and research to victims’ services and highway safety. Policing Insight spoke to Dubai Police Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, about the force’s success, its efforts to tackle challenges such as COVID-19 and transnational crime, and how high-tech and happiness are crucial elements of the force's long-term strategy.

ANALYSIS: While a significant proportion of the American public are calling for police reform, more than half of all major crime in the US still goes unreported, and police only make an arrest in around one in five of those cases; Professor Shima Baughman of the University of Utah argues that truly improving policing will require those two gaps to be addressed.

OPINION: While there are undoubtedly resource and technology costs attached to the police use of social media, the contribution it can make to the delivery of policing in both physical and digital spaces needs to be understood and acknowledged, says Dr Liam Ralph, Research Fellow at Northumbria University.

OPINION: In the third in a series of three articles on law enforcement and digital technology, Ian Stevenson, Chair of the Online Safety Technology Industry Association (OSTIA) and CEO and co-founder of Cyan Forensics, considers some of the key questions and challenges around innovation and technology in policing.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Data is now at the heart of every investigation, but as well as offering opportunity to improve the service for victims of crime, it can also hinder it. In this article, Boyd Mulvey, CEO and Founder of Chorus, talks about the data challenges currently facing law enforcement and how Chorus believe they have developed a new Intelligence Suite to help overcome them.

OPINION: Adrian Timberlake, chief technical officer at Seven Technologies Group, explains how facial recognition could help to reduce bias and protect innocent members of the public, while ensuring the guilty are brought to justice.

ANALYSIS: When a health expert referred to the ‘random variation’ in COVID figures, there was little reaction; but as Dr Simon Guilfoyle – a lecturer, adviser and serving police inspector – explains, the statement highlighted some of the dangers of using data to make binary comparisons, which have led to years of flawed decisions and knee-jerk reactions in policing.

UCL COVID-19 SERIES: Mohammed Almazrouei from the UCL Jill Dando Institute, Nicola Georgiou from the UCL Centre for Forensic Sciences and Moa Lidén from the Abu Dhabi Police Forensic Evidence Laboratory collaborate to consider how the role of the forensic pathologist has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.