Regulatory/inspection agencies

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.

INNOVATION: A Thames Valley Police trial of a mobile phone app-based tasking mechanism for hotspot policing has led to increased patrols, reduced costs and cuts in violent crime – and a scalable solution which researchers believe could be used for other policing activities, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A recent UK conference on the management of sexual or violent offenders (MOSOVO) saw speakers call for a shift in focus to encouraging desistance from offending, rather than reacting to events, with the need for greater sharing of good practice and closer collaboration with partner agencies also high on the agenda, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: In the latest article in The Police Student series, Policing Insight Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly explores the prison system in England and Wales, including the philosophies behind imprisonment of offenders, the make-up of the current prison population, the challenges around the prison system, and whether prison ‘works’.

INNOVATION: The roll out by two forces in Wales of operator-initiated facial recognition, which uses a mobile phone app to help identify individuals who are unable to confirm their ID, refuse to give details or give false information, is already resulting in benefits for the police and the public despite concerns voiced by campaign groups, as South Wales Police facial recognition lead Inspector Ben Gwyer told Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

FEATURE: As one of the first 10 forces selected for a hotspot policing pilot targeting serious violence and antisocial behaviour, South Yorkshire Police has been implementing the approach in a number of operations over the past two and half years; Acting Inspector Simon Kirkham of the force’s Hotspot Response Hub reflects on some of those initiatives (including the most recent winter violence campaign), how the hotspot team is trained and operates, and the successes it has achieved.

OPINION: A recent judgment by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal found that the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan Police had unlawfully conducted surveillance into two investigative journalists; former Detective Chief Inspector Steve Christopher, a Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice at Leicester’s De Montfort University, fears this latest example of “egregious conduct” around covert policing could be “merely the tip of the iceberg”.

INTERVIEW: A review of the connections between sexual exposure and contact sexual offending is calling for non-contact sexual offences to be handled by police with the same focus and response as rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO), as the impact on victims is still significant, and many of those offenders who go on to commit RASSO have previously carried out non-contact sexual offences, as London Metropolitan University Professor Dr Fiona Vera-Grey (one of the report’s authors) told Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: With just over a year to go until the end of National Police Chiefs’ Council funding for the Police Race Action Plan, Ian Weinfass looks at what chief constables across England and Wales hope it can achieve, and speaks to the chair of its independent scrutiny board and the head of the National Black Police Association about what else needs to be done.

OPINION: Police legitimacy is essential in ensuring public trust and confidence, and ethical decision-making and the use of discretion are key issues in reinforcing that legitimacy with the public; University of Portsmouth PhD Researcher and former police officer David Knowles explores why an understanding of theories and philosophies of ethical decision-making should be included within police education, and how it could benefit officers while enabling improved use of the national decision model.

INTERVIEW: As he approaches the first-year anniversary of taking up the top job with Saskatoon Police Service, Chief Cameron McBride spoke to Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend about his 28 years with the Service, the inward focus on wellness and support for officers, the importance of community engagement, and the social, technological and retention challenges facing modern policing.

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.

FEATURE: Earlier this year more than 40 academics and police practitioners gathered at Canterbury Christ Church University’s Centre for Policing Research (CCPR) to explore both the strategic importance of wellbeing and the practical steps being taken to support officers and staff in frontline and specialist roles, as Policing Insight’s Dr Carina O’Reilly reports.

FEATURE: A National Audit Office ‘value for money’ report into the work of the Government and Home Office to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) has warned that efforts to improve the outcome for victims have largely failed so far, with the Home Office failing to lead an effective cross-government response, and a generally limited understanding of the resources allocated to tackling VAWG or their impact, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass reports on what was discussed at a first-of-a-kind international symposium on boosting trust and confidence in policing, including new research on winning public support and the importance of listening to communities.

FEATURE: In the wake of a joint investigation into a super complaint over police-perpetrated domestic abuse (PPDA), the Independent Office for Police Conduct has now published its review of the way forces in England and Wales handle such cases, with calls for improved training for frontline officers on the potentially complex nature of PPDA, the need for better recording and vetting, and greater consideration of the impartiality of investigations, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: Every day, police officers endure experiences that most people can’t even imagine – violence, tragedy, and life-or-death emotionally fuelled decisions – but what happens when the weight of that trauma becomes too much to bear? PhD researcher Lucy Davies of the Open University’s Centre of Policing Research & Learning (CPRL) explores how unprocessed trauma can quietly erode judgement, fuel emotion dysregulation and, in some cases, lead to the very misconduct that undermines public trust.

FEATURE: A new Police Foundation report into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in policing across England and Wales has called for improved data literacy – particularly at senior leadership levels – alongside national frameworks for digital technology delivery, data standardisation and the ethical use of AI, to ensure forces leverage maximum potential from the new tech while improving service to the public, as Policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.

OPINION: With the terrorist threat level in Australia sitting at ‘probable’, former Australian Secretary of Home Affairs Michael Pezzullo warns that the current confusion over responsibility for counter-terrorism in the country is weakening security – particularly in relation to the anti-Semitic terror threat – and sets out 10 steps the government needs to take to address the problem.

INTERVIEW: Former New York Police Department Chief of Department Terry Monahan, who was a police officer in the city for 39 years, spoke to Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass about how a new neighbourhood policing model and a genuine approach to listening to the community led to record low levels of crime and homicide, and how a famous picture of him taking a knee with Black Lives Matters protesters came about.

INNOVATION: Avon and Somerset Police’s Dementia Safeguarding Scheme is using Bluetooth tags and GPS trackers to help those with dementia if they go missing – reducing the amount of police resources deployed on tracing vulnerable people and protecting loved ones – as scheme pioneer Inspector Stuart King told Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

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FEATURE: The guilty plea and sentencing last month of 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana for the horrific murders of three young girls in Southport in July have prompted fresh debate about whether existing UK terrorism legislation is fit for purpose; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks back at how the current laws came into place, and what changes could mean for the definitions of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’.

FEATURE: A new report from the Northern Ireland Policing Board exploring the relationship between children and young people and the Police Service of Northern Ireland has urged the Service to engage more effectively with youngsters who may often be vulnerable to influence and control from paramilitary and organised crime groups, with the role of neighbourhood officers and a rethink of the use of stop and search among key steps to improve that engagement, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.