Topical issues

INTERVIEW: Dorset Police’s Survivors’ Network was launched after several officers who came forward to complain of harassment, inappropriate behaviour and abuse found they lacked support; Chief Superintendent Julie Howe, who launched the award-winning initiative, explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons that the network is now helping to drive cultural change around misogyny and violence against women and girls, including those experiencing abuse in their private lives.

OPINION: Following on from the publication of the Government’s Road Safety Strategy for England, and calls from some quarters for the measures to go further to prevent road fatalities, Leo Taylor, Director of Drivetech (the AA’s driver training and risk management business), explores what the strategy will mean for drivers and particularly for the role of roads policing, with a greater focus on the use of technology, collaboration with other stakeholders, and the preventative benefits of high-visibility policing.

FEATURE: Research into the impact of the police roll-out of the Right Care, Right Person model of responding to those in mental health crisis in England and Wales suggests that while the approach has made a “considerable contribution” to reducing police contact with those who have mental health problems, in some cases it has left others in frontline positions in “dangerous situations”, and has led to stakeholders “gaming the system” to ensure a police response, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: In the wake of the UK Government’s white paper on police reform, Steve Dodd, a former South Wales Police detective and College of Policing subject matter expert on intelligence professionalisation, argues that policing can immediately adopt community intelligence-led policing methodology as an enabler for the Government’s ‘local to national’ ambitions.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons explores Ontario’s Mental Health Crisis Response programme, a virtual reality training model being rolled out to all officers across the province which research suggest can help to de-escalate those mental health crisis interventions, reduce the police use of force, and improve public trusts and confidence in law enforcement.

OPINION: The UK Government’s recent white paper on police reform contained a wide range of ambitious proposals for the future shape of policing; but Dale Peters, Senior Research Director at TechMarketView, warns that unless digital, data and technology developments are an integral part of that reform – rather than a separate workstream – a huge opportunity to structure and equip policing for the years ahead will be lost.

INTERVIEW: Human trafficking and exploitation are challenges that law enforcement cannot “police your way out of”, warns UCL’s Ella Cockbain, Professor of Human Trafficking and Exploitation, with more focus on a public health approach, improved listening to the voices of victims and survivors, and a better understanding of what really works among the key steps to meeting those challenges, as Prof Cockbain explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: New South Wales Police recently announced a six-month trial of drones manufactured by Chinese company DJI; the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Dr John Coyne and James Corera argue that the trial raises broader questions about the risks associated with technologies owned, controlled or influenced by foreign entities, particularly around mission scope, data management, infrastructure connectivity and supply chain resilience.

FEATURE: With the latest analyses by both the National Crime Agency and the European Union Drugs Agency highlighting the continuing rise of drug misuse across the continent, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth explores the work of a new project that focuses on upskilling local police, city prevention services, and youth and social workers as part of a multi-stakeholder approach to tackling the impact of the drug misuse.

ANALYSIS: As the dust begins to settle on the proposals laid out in the UK Government’s recent white paper on police reform, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett takes a closer look at the plans, exploring among other things the challenges around force mergers, the creation of a new national police service and the changing constitutional relationship between policing and government, and considers whether the suggested reforms laid out in the paper are simply too radical and too ambitious.

OPINION: While charge rates are often taken as an indicator of a police force’s success in tackling crime, many stakeholders argue that out-of-court resolutions (OOCRs) can provide victims with meaningful justice while reducing the burden on the court system; Ella Thomson, Research and Policy Officer for Transform Justice, sets out the findings of the organisation’s recent research into police use of OOCRs, as well as three key practical takeaways that can help forces to improve and increase their use of the diversionary measures.

INTERVIEW: A series of ‘Gold Standards’ published by the UK’s National Police Chaplaincy service designed to inspire forces “in their care for colleagues and positively impact communities” will mirror many of the aims of the recent police reform proposals in England and Wales, while also helping officers to cope with an emotional weight in modern policing “that is too heavy for many to bear”, as National Police Chaplain Reverend Matthew Hopley explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

INTERVIEW: Hertfordshire Constabulary Sergeant James Stopford, a full-time Police Federation of England and Wales representative, hopes a personal “passion project” to highlight the risks associated with gambling – which can have a devastating impact on those already affected by trauma – can help to raise awareness of the dangers among colleagues in his own force and others across the country, as he explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: With the hugely concerning levels of suicide among police officers and staff, highlighted most recently by the Police Federation of England and Wales, the service’s response to those struggling with poor mental health is increasingly under the spotlight; former senior Police Scotland officer Ryan MacDonald, now a writer and speaker on trauma and resilience, shares his own experiences of the deafening silence some officers encounter when disclosing their personal mental health challenges.

INTERVIEW: The launch of the groundbreaking Police Review Commission (PRC) in Alberta, Canada, sees civilian oversight of investigations into allegations of police misconduct, and a 180-day time limit for complaints to be resolved, in a move away from the perception of “police marking their own homework”, says CEO Michael Ewenson; he explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons why the work of the PRC is a “good news story” for communities and officers.

ANALYSIS: Many police forces globally are grappling with the challenge of how they use social media such as X to improve communications and public engagement; research by Dr Usman A. Ojedokun, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Nigeria’s University of Ibadan, explores the success or otherwise of the Nigeria Police Force’s use of X for both engagement and crime reporting, and the reasons behind why some people opted for the social media route to contact the police.

INNOVATION: A study of drug violence dynamics on Merseyside has highlighted the importance of understanding the “informal governance mechanisms” employed by organised crime groups (OCGs), and has led to the creation of a ‘co-operation index’ tool which can help police to more effectively target resources and prevent increased violence between OCGs, as researcher Dr Andrea Giovannetti explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: From complex crimes and tight finances to emerging technology and the public expectations, policing in the UK is facing a wide range of often complex challenges; in an article drawing on her recent Atkins Lecture, Professor Kate Bowers, Director of UCL’s Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, sets out some of those key challenges and, in the wake of the recently published white paper on police reform, suggests some potential ideas to address them.

ANALYSIS: The recent UK police reform proposals include a five-fold increase in the number of live facial recognition vans available to forces, and a significant expansion of the use of the technology; new research by Associate Professor Kay Ritchie of the University of Lincoln and Associate Professor Katie Gray of the University of Reading reveals that while the facial recognition technology used by police is now very accurate, public understanding of how it works and how it is used lags far behind.

FEATURE: With the rapid growth of the internet offering law enforcement and security services huge new quantities of increasingly accessible open-source intelligence (OSINT), AI will play an invaluable role in policing and other organisations’ ability to collate, analyse and provide actionable intelligence from that information, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth explains.

OPINION: In the latest in a regular series of articles from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), Philip Seccombe, Police and Crime Commissioner for Warwickshire and the APCC’s Joint Lead on Roads Policing, welcomes some of the measures set out in the UK’s recently published Road Safety Strategy, but urges the Government to go further to protect those who feature disproportionately among the 1,600 people killed on UK roads every year.

FEATURE: A recent report by the Public Accounts Committee is calling for more transparency over what it described as the “hopelessly outdated” funding formula for police in England and Wales which is restricting forces’ ability to recruit the right staff and roll out new technology, and warns that the Home Office needs better understanding of how policy changes impact on policing resources, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: Efforts to address the issue of ‘police culture’ are a regular feature of transformation programmes in law enforcement; organisational psychologist Michael Stephenson argues that most culture change initiatives fail because those creating them fundamentally misunderstand what culture is, its complexity, and the importance of recognising and addressing the role of ‘micro-narratives’ rather than trying to engineer new cultures through imposed idealised values and mindsets.

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