Topical issues

ANALYSIS: The recent Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Act was drafted in part to answer public concerns about collecting and retaining biometric samples; but the legislation, and corresponding laws in England and Wales, place Scottish samples on UK databases in a legislative and regulatory limbo, as Post-Doctoral Researcher Karen Richmond of the University of Copenhagen explains.

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.

OPINION: With the UK Government’s three-year Comprehensive Spending Review due to be announced in the next few weeks, UNISON National Officer Ben Priestley warns that an inadequate settlement could see police staffing levels fall – and the prospect of many of the additional officers promised by the Prime Minister restricted to station duties to plug the gaps.

UCL COVID-19 SERIES: In this latest article from the UCL series, Graham Farrell from the University of Leeds and Shane D Johnson from the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL discuss how a COVID-19 vaccine may trigger a crime wave on a global scale.

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.

OPINION: The coronavirus pandemic has affected all areas of society, and in turn, all facets of policing. In the first in a series of articles linked to this month's Policing in the Time of Pandemic workshops organised by the London Policing College, former officer and current police trainer Martin Edwards shares his experiences of delivering police education in the COVID-19 era.

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.

OPINION: Police in many countries have been given extraordinary powers to enforce lockdowns and tackle COVID-19; but as Dr John Coyne, Head of Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) points out, applying those powers could seriously erode the public’s trust in policing.

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.

ANALYSIS: Significant increases in cocaine purity, worrying levels of heroin seizures and emerging new threats from the COVID-19 lockdown are among the key issues highlighted in the latest European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction assessment, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: Politicians and campaign groups in Australia are calling for coercive control to be criminalised as part of legislation to tackle domestic violence; but without wider consultation and consideration, the move could be counter-productive, as Professors Kate Fitz-Gibbon and Silke Meyer of Monash University, and Prof Sandra Walklate of the University of Liverpool, explain.

ANALYSIS: This year marks the centenary of the Baird Committee Report, which recommended that women should be employed as sworn police officers across England and Wales. In the first of two articles, Dr Wendy Laverick and Professor Peter Joyce present a historical account of the involvement of women in policing, the barriers and obstacles they faced, and the current and future situation regarding equality of opportunity.

FEATURE: The tragic shooting of Met Police Sgt Matt Ratana last month once again highlighted the horrific impact of the illegal trade in unlicensed firearms; Policing Insight contributor Andy Staniforth looks at at the latest trends in firearms trafficking, and the steps being taken across Europe to stem the flow of weapons.

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.

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.

OPINION: Diversity has long been a crucial concern in policing, but the wider criminal justice system has also come under scrutiny on the issue; Penelope Gibbs, Director of Transform Justice, believes plans to raise the retirement age for judges and magistrates could seriously damage the diversity of the judiciary and magistracy.

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: The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill, published in April, aims to consolidate existing hate crime legislation, as well as introducing new offences and abolishing blasphemy. Kath Murray, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Lisa Mackenzie of the MurrayBlackburnMackenzie Policy Analysis Collective analyse and explain police responses to the new bill and its wide-ranging ramifications.

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: Congregations and places of worship from a number of religions are increasingly being targeted across Europe by a range of individuals and groups including far-right activists, extreme anarchists and libertarians; Policing Insight contributor Andrew Staniforth looks at the scale of the problem, and the European Commission response.