People development

FEATURE: A new tutor constable training programme launched by the College of Policing for forces in England and Wales aims to professionalise a role that is often overlooked, while delivering public benefits by ensuring new recruits receive the right guidance, and improve retention and cut costs through reducing the number of early-in-service resignations, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: An update on Police Scotland’s Policing Together programme, launched in 2021 to deliver “long-term tangible impact” on a wide variety of equality and diversity issues, reveals improvements on a range of inclusivity and community representation measures, higher levels of satisfaction with police-public interactions, and reduction in the use of force, officer injuries and complaints, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: Policing and artificial intelligence (AI) experts from the UK, Australia, US, Canada and the UAE came together recently to explore international insights into policing in the age of AI, highlighting the challenges around improving tech capability, overcoming fragmentation, the need to engage and explain to the public and police staff, and the dangers of eroding police discretion, as well as the increasing threats from the criminal use of AI, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: In the first in a series of articles on male officer mental health in policing, accredited psychological therapist Dr Rachel Rogers looks at what happens when emotional responses to extraordinary events and stresses become regarded as “normal”, and how the gap between the reality of policing and the systems designed to support it result in a culture where “resilience is expected but rarely resourced”, while help often arrives late and can feel disciplinary.

INNOVATION: Earlier this year Police Now launched a new specialist economic crime programme, recruiting 12 graduates to join City of London Police and become detectives within two years; Policing Insight’s James Sweetland spoke with City of London Deputy Commissioner Nik Adams, Police Now CEO Kurtis Christoforides, and three graduates on the programme to learn more.

INTERVIEW: Since Krissy Barrett’s appointment last month as Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), she has been setting out some of the challenges facing the organisation in the current policing landscape; she recently spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about her aims for leading the force to meet the evolving threats, the AFP’s unique technical and collaborative capabilities, and her ambition to ensure the AFP is “the best police agency in the world to work in”.

OPINION: Despite an estimated 4.8 million people being forced into the sex trade each year, surveys indicate just 4% of law enforcement personnel believe human trafficking is a problem in their community; research by Dr Dara Mojtahedi, University of Huddersfield Associate Professor in Forensic and Investigative Psychology, found that myths around the scale of the issue and perceptions of victims are damaging those victims and creating barriers to tackling the problem, and suggests steps to dispel those myths.

FEATURE: A recent report into the UK Government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee has warned that for the Guarantee to succeed, there will need to be better training for neighbourhood policing recruits, a reduction in officer abstractions from neighbourhood policing teams, and change in the perception of the neighbourhood role to recognise it as a specialism, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasing role in policing – both in tackling crime and improving efficiency – with suggestions that it could also be key to improving public trust and confidence; but Leeds Trinity University Associate Professor Jonathan Jackson and PCDA Programme Lead Katie Oxley argue that while AI may offer valuable advantages, public trust and confidence also depend on the quality of interaction with individual officers, so ‘street craft’ and communication skills remain crucial.

OPINION: Despite a continuing focus on diversity and inclusion across policing, specialist units in particular remain stubbornly homogeneous; new research within tactical and firearms teams by Dr Ashleigh Bennett, an occupational psychologist with extensive experience in policing and the public sector, highlights the significant cultural barriers officers encounter within these teams, and suggests steps forces should be taking to ensure inclusion becomes simply a matter of how policing operates.

INTERVIEW: Essex Chief Constable BJ Harrington, one of the longer-serving chief constables in England and Wales, spoke recently to Policing Insight’s James Sweetland about avoiding “distractions” in delivering policing to the public, facing down criticism in relation to controversial issues such as the Epping asylum protests, and why local control and connections are still more effective in service delivery than “big is beautiful” centralisation.

FEATURE: With the frequency and severity of wildfires increasing across Europe, a series of innovative new projects has been launched to strengthen wildfire management and readiness, offering valuable guidance to fire services, other first responders, and police and fire commissioners alike, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

OPINION: While gender inequality in policing and the damage caused by a misogynistic culture have featured regularly in reports, research and media discourse, attempts to tackle the problem appear to have had little success; Nicola Harrison, a former police officer and Senior lecturer in Policing and Criminology at Sheffield Hallam University, argues that to address these issues, culture change cannot be mandated but must be cultivated from the ground up.

OPINION: Previous surveys by the Police Federation of England and Wales revealed the impact on female officers of experiencing the menopause while working in policing, and the scale of the problem; now new research by PC Beverley Beck of Dorset Police has highlighted how the institutional neglect of menopause contributes to the early exit of talented and experienced female officers, as well as the good practice underway in some forces to address the issues and support officers.

OPINION: South Yorkshire Police Detective Chief Inspector Aneela Khalil-Khan recently completed the Senior Leadership Programme at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia; in this article she shares some of the key lessons from the experience, including the contrast and similarities between UK and US policing, and the opportunities for learning for policing in both countries.

INTERVIEW: Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson has been credited with turning round the performance of the force since he took over the top job in 2021, as well as being vocal about the importance of getting the basics right in policing; he spoke to Policing Insight’s James Sweetland about the need to focus on professionalism and impartiality, developing a proactive mindset among officers, GMP’s approach to neighbourhood policing, and the challenges and benefits of a National Centre of Policing.

SERIES LAUNCH: We are pleased to announce the launch of the latest series of The Police Student, supporting degree-entry recruits to the police service. This new series looks at community and neighbourhood policing both as a philosophy and a practice.

FEATURE: In the first in a new series of The Police Student focusing on Community and Neighbourhood Policing, Policing Insight Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly explores the development and definition of neighbourhood policing, and considers its importance in building relationships with the community, as well as its role in tackling public concerns about crime and strengthening confidence in policing.

ANALYSIS: Findings of a study that focused on policing students’ decision-making suggest that while participants generally apply the National Decision Model impartially, subtle biases are evident in their reasoning processes; analysis also reveals that despite training efforts to reduce bias, socio-economic biases persist, influencing perceptions of suspects and victims – although not always resulting in overtly biased decisions – as study author and Professional Policing graduate Olivia Fowler explains.

FEATURE: A recent report into police-perpetrated family violence among officers from Australia’s Victoria Police is calling for an “urgent paradigm shift” away from the force’s role in responding to family violence to fund to more community-focused initiatives, amid concerns around a “culture of officers minimising and dismissing offending”, as well as colluding with perpetrators and misidentifying victim-survivors as perpetrators, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: After leading Merseyside Police for just over four years, Serena Kennedy recently stepped down from her role as the Chief Constable of the fifth largest force in England and Wales; speaking with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland shortly before her departure, she reflected on the changing nature of police leadership, debates about national reform, and shared her perspective on what the planned new National Centre of Policing (NCoP) should look like.

OPINION: The Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (ANZPAA) recently published its revised Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Principles, designed to provide a framework for police “to address racism and strengthen collaborative partnerships”; Jacqueline Durand, ANZPAA’s Assistant Director of Policy and Projects, explains why the Principles have been updated, the important differences between anti-racism and cultural awareness, and the vital role leadership plays in delivering this proactive approach.

INTERVIEW: The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) recently published new guidance for police forces and other uniformed services on collecting and analysing equality data; EHRC Wales Committee Interim Chair Martyn Jones spoke to Policing Insight’s Keith Potter about the drivers behind the new guidance, how good data could lead to necessary cultural change, and why police forces need to be aware of their statutory duties around collating and utilising equality data.

OPINION: The recent undercover BBC Panorama programme highlighting serious misconduct by some Met officers, and the resulting outcry, once again focused on the bad behaviour of individuals; but Graham Goulden, a former officer with a 30-year career and now a strong advocate for safe and supportive workplaces, argues that the real focus needs to be on the cultures, situations and systems that enable such behaviour.