Topical issues

FEATURE: An evaluation of the UK Government-funded Project ADDER initiative has found that while the approach has led to more arrests of high-harm individuals, significant seizures of drugs and cash, and an increase in the number of users being referred to diversionary services through out-of-court disposals, a stronger focus on a ‘whole systems approach’ will be needed if the Project is to cut offending and reduce drug use, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: The continuing development of multi-channel public contact is a key issue for policing across England and Wales; in the last in the recent series of Policing Tech Forum webinars produced by PolicingTV, Content Guru Business Development Director Shub Naha, Humberside Police Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Scot Dunn, and David Jackson from the NPCC’s Digital Public Contact Programme, explored the opportunities for AI to improve service delivery as well as staff and officer wellbeing, but not to replace humans in the process.

OPINION: Data-driven evidence-based policing has the potential to enhance both public safety and community trust; however, Dr Vidal Chavannes, Director of Strategy, Research and Organizational Performance at Durham Regional Police Service, warns that without community-centric data governance, where policing co-creates data policies with those communities most affected by them, such an approach risks becoming “another mechanism for control rather than a tool for genuine reform”.

INNOVATION: With increasing recognition of the opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) to significantly reduce the time and costs associated with some policing activities, the push for wider use of such technology has never been greater; in the last in a series of articles on AI in policing, Matt Palmer, Product Director, Public Safety from NEC Software Solutions, explores the key issues around ensuring the technology is used ethically and transparently.

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.

OPINION: A new crime of ‘wage theft’ was established in New Zealand this month, but as the Act which introduced it was progressing through Parliament, it was clear MPs believed the police would be responsible for enforcing the legislation; Irene Nikoloudakis, PhD in Law Candidate at the University of Adelaide, believes that police are ill-equipped to investigate such offences, pointing instead to the Australian model of using the workplace regulator to undertake investigations and enforcement.

INNOVATION: Following on from the recent Beyond Bureaucracy conference on artificial intelligence (AI) in the criminal justice system (CJS), independent policing and technology expert Giles Herdale explores some of the main opportunities and challenges facing police and the CJS in the successful development, adoption and implementation of effective AI technologies.

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.

INTERVIEW: With terrorist and extremist groups looking increasingly to online platforms as a way to radicalise internet users – particularly young people – the European Commission’s Prevention of Radicalisation Unit is working hard to counter their activities; in this first in a two-part interview, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth spoke to Unit Policy Officer Friederike Wegener about her work with the team, the priorities of her role, and the current online terrorist threat.

INTERVIEW: The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has launched new guidance on how forces and violence reduction units can adopt and implement the multi-agency focused deterrence (FD) approach to tackle serious violence, which international research shows has cut crime by an average 33%; the YEF’s Dr Stevie-Jade Hardy spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about how FD works, the guidance and ‘on the ground’ support offered by the YEF, and ongoing evaluations of the scheme in the UK.

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’.

ANALYSIS: The latest Europol Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA), published this month, highlights the changing face of organised crime, and emerging methods and tactics adopted by organised crime groups (OCGs) around the world; Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen looks at some of the key themes from the report, including the increasing use of technology by OCGs, the collaboration and co-operation between criminals, and how OCGs are operating on a business model.

INTERVIEW: With the continuing advances and availability of 3D printing technology, New Zealand Police National Intelligence Director Dan Wildy spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the importance of the multi-disciplinary approaches being taken by the service in tackling a growing firearms threat favoured by organised crime groups, and the value of international collaboration.

OPINION: In the second in a regular series of articles and opinion pieces from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell, Chair of the APCC, looks at the measures included in the Crime and Policing Bill currently progressing through Parliament, and the steps that PCCs, PFCCs and deputy mayors will play in helping to ensure those changes are delivered for the benefit of local communities.

OPINION: The UK Government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls, but University of Liverpool Professor Barry Godfrey and University of Manchester Professor David Gadd argue that the current recency, frequency, gravity, and victim algorithm used to determine which offenders pose the greatest risk to women and girls is ineffective, and propose moving to determination using a life-course approach, which considers the type and pattern of offending as it develops over time.

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.

INNOVATION: An initiative launched by City of London Police is helping those who end up in custody because of alcohol-related crime or excessive drinking to take steps to address their problems through a collaboration with Alcoholics Anonymous; as well as encouraging other forces to adopt the approach, Sergeant Richard Scullion – who oversees the initiative – believes there could also be wider benefits for officers, as he explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

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: Tecnalia, the largest centre of applied research and technological development in Spain and a member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance, is a partner in the NOTIONES project, a European network bringing police agencies together to improve the capacity and capability of intelligence functions; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth spoke to Tecnalia Project Manager Olatz Ibáñez about the organisation’s work with the NOTIONES network, and the benefits and challenges of participating in European security research and innovation projects.

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: Recent arrests and seizures suggest drug traffickers are increasingly switching to chemically concealed cocaine (CCC) to move tonnes of shipments around the world, largely undetected; in the second in a series of articles on CCC and organised crime, Policing Insight’s Chris Dalby looks at the processes involved in chemical concealment and extraction, what law enforcement can look for to identify extraction labs, and the struggles facing traditional techniques of detection as well as some new, effective methods.

INNOVATION: As forces increase contact channels to include digital and online routes, the likelihood of comms staff being exposed to harmful images has increased, says Rebecca Malpass, Digital Communications Development Senior for Derbyshire Constabulary; now a new AI-based image filter together with additional guidance for staff can help to protect individuals from being exposed to indecent images, as she explained to 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.