Police management

INNOVATION: While special constables and volunteers are a well-established part of British policing, many won’t be aware of their cyber equivalent; Policing Insight’s James Sweetland spoke to the National Police Chiefs’ Council team co-ordinating the network of Cyber Digital Specials and Volunteers across England and Wales, including an exclusive interview with a cyber volunteer active today.

FEATURE: A new UK report by the Society of Editors, the Crime Reporters Association and the Media Lawyers Association has called on the police and press to work on rebuilding their “broken” relationship for the benefit of transparency, trust and confidence, while also warning that social media posts which often dominate high-profile investigations and court cases are in danger of being “weaponised”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: With the Paris Olympics and Paralympics due to get underway from next week, police and security forces across the city and the country remain on high alert to prevent any possible terror attack; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the challenges they face, how previous attacks have shaped the current security response, and the difficult balance between security and the spirit of the Games.

ANALYSIS: Cityforum’s Transforming Police Public Contact roundtable that took place earlier this year saw representatives from policing, government, academia and industry follow up from the 2023 event to once again debate the key issues around police public contact; this article by Nick Gargan, based on his report of the roundtable, brings together the key contributions and perspectives from the event.

OPINION: Already a criminal offence in the UK and parts of Australia, coercive control in intimate relationships looks set to be crimimalized in Canada under legislation making its way through the Senate; but PhD student Eden Hoffer and Professor Nadine Wathen of Western University, Ontario, argue that – because of the nature of the criminal justice system, and gender-neutral policies – criminalizing coercive control could also criminalize more women victim-survivors of intimate partner violence.

FEATURE: A new study by the UK’s Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre suggests that when it comes to what the public want from its police service, while tackling crime is important, people are more focused on how policing is conducted and its relationships with the communities it serves, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: In the latest in a series of articles exploring the opportunities and challenges presented to police by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), Chief Philip Lukens explores how this new technology can be used to improve officers’ decision-making in particularly complex and stressful situations such as the use of force.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the recent successful operation by European law enforcement agencies working with colleagues in the US to take down multiple platforms used to disseminate terrorist propaganda, and explores the ongoing efforts of Europol to target those spreading terrorist content online.

OPINION: Taiwan’s police forces are known for their professionalism and expertise, particularly in areas such as terrorism, cybercrime and human trafficking; but China’s continuing successful efforts to block Taiwan’s membership of Interpol weakens the organisation and sends the wrong political signals – a situation which Dr John Coyne of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute believes needs to be addressed at Interpol’s next General Assembly in Glasgow in November.

OPINION: Police in the UK have little discretion to resolve cases involving hate speech with an out-of-court sanction, although an evaluation of this approach recorded reduced reoffending and successful completion rates; Penelope Gibbs, Director of campaign group Transform Justice, believes education of those committing one-off hate speech crimes could be much more effective than court fines, and could reassure victims that such behaviour wouldn’t be repeated.

INTERVIEW: In his first interview in the role, Chair of the City of London Police Authority Board Tijs Broeke spoke about his goals for the force, how a shocking homophobic attack encouraged him to get involved in policing as a special constable, and why politicians focusing on wokeness in policing are “wasting their time”, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

ANALYSIS: With Yvette Cooper now in post as the UK’s first Labour Home Secretary in 14 years, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the legacy she is inheriting, the lessons that can be learnt from the last Labour government, and the challenges Ms Cooper will face in successfully delivering meaningful and positive change in policing against a backdrop of an overstretched criminal justice system.

ANALYSIS: New research undertaken in Cleveland Police into police pursuits has highlighted how forces could target their stretched resources more effectively, and potentially improve training on local and rural roads, as well as indicating opportunities for police to work with manufacturers and other partners to make better use of technology in preventing pursuits, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The recent Counter-Terror Expo in London saw Commander Dom Murphy of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism Command reiterate the vital role played by communities and community policing in defeating the terrorist threat; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth explores the key messages from Cmdr Murphy, and the wider focus on the community model and the ‘golden thread’ of intelligence that is crucial in the UK’s fight against terrorism.

OPINION: The recent dismissal of former Northamptonshire Chief Constable Nick Adderley for gross misconduct prompted many comments from officers and staff who felt let down by his actions; but former Scottish police officer Graham Goulden, now an active bystander trainer, believes it’s important for officers to recognise the need for loyalty to communities, rather than simply blind loyalty to colleagues.

ANALYSIS: In the second in a series of four articles, Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood looks more closely at why culture matters in policing, and how traits such as solidarity, suspicion, intolerance, and excitement seeking can damage public confidence, while others including conservatism, cynicism, and policing’s ‘masculine ethos’ can create barriers to reform.

OPINION: Protest in Kenya has often been criminalised, leading to brutal police crackdowns as seen in recent protests against the cost of living in Kenya, and an attempt by the government to introduce new taxes, where police responded with live bullets and teargas, reportedly leaving more than a dozen people killed and hundreds injured; Dr Kamau Wairuri, who has studied the policing of protests in Kenya, explains what contributes to the violence witnessed during public demonstrations.

FEATURE: With police making increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in crime fighting – including facial recognition – a new compliance framework drawn up by the EU’s PRECRISIS project will help to ensure that the testing of AI surveillance tools in the public domain will meet all the necessary ethical, legal and security guidance and legislation, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

OPINION: Ahead of this week’s conference on learning from and embedding victim and survivor experiences in response to child sexual abuse (CSA), Dr Sarah Colley, Postdoctoral Researcher at event organisers the International Policing and Public Protection Research Institute, underlines the importance of listening to – and acting on – the lived experiences of victims and survivors of CSA.

INTERVIEW: Former Scottish Lord Advocate Lady Elish Angiolini KC is chair of the eponymous inquiry into the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens; in this exclusive interview with Policing Insight she talks to James Sweetland about the inquiry’s review of Couzens’ offending history, including historic indecent exposure investigations that were “doomed to fail”, “apathy and disinterest” from investigating officers, and flawed vetting processes that failed to pick up critical red flags.

OPINION: National Police Chiefs’ Council Chair, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, believes facial recognition (FR) has the potential to be a game-changer for crime fighting; in this article – which appears as the foreword to Policing Insight’s latest thematic report, Facing the future: the rise of facial recognition in policing – he highlights the potential benefits of FR, and the pledges from UK policing to ensure such technology is used ethically, transparently and responsibly.

FEATURE: From fraud to CSE to radicalisation, generative artificial intelligence is already changing criminal operations; experts at the recent UCL International Crime Science Conference discussed what changes that are “faster than the industrial revolution” mean now and for the future, and debated ways to uphold public safety, as Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass reports.

ANALYSIS: New research led by Abertay University’s Dr Ben Jones and funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research’s Future of Policing Scheme has highlighted the new challenges around retrieving fingerprints from polymer banknotes introduced in the UK in 2015, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: While scams may have traditionally been viewed as mainly opportunistic offences of consumer fraud, Deloitte fraud and intelligence specialist Paul Curwell and Nicholas McTaggart, financial crime consultant and former Australian Federal Police national co-ordinator, warn that increasingly sophisticated and AI-based scams are being used to raise funds for terrorist organisations and transnational serious and organised crime groups, and need a more co-ordinated global response.