FEATURE: In the wake of Ontario’s Building Bridges @ Blue conference, Policing Insight’s Matthew Wood explores the development of evidence-based policing across Canada, an approach that is gaining momentum but which faces significant challenges around governance, the disconnect between funding and outcomes, and the need to share outcomes.
INNOVATION: As forces adopt new approaches to digital evidence, integrating privacy with intelligence tools is proving key to efficiency, prediction, and community trust; Simon Randall, CEO of automatic redaction specialists Pimloc, explores the technology opportunities available to police forces to ensure that privacy and productivity advance hand in hand.
INNOVATION: A College of Policing evaluation of the use of enhanced video response to a range of calls coming in from the public to Avon and Somerset Police suggests that the approach could lead to significant improvements in response times, investigative standards, and overall case duration, as well as greater victim satisfaction and reduced stress and workloads for many officers taking part, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
OPINION: With police forces facing crime challenges at national and international levels, the 43-force structure across England and Wales can present a barrier to speedy and effective interventions; NTT DATA UK&I Executive Head of Public Safety and Justice Ian Rimington, Senior Director Brian Cliff, and Director Keith Ward, argue that closer digital collaboration between neighbouring forces would preserve local independence while giving officers the speed, clarity and unity of purpose to face crime that moves without borders.
INNOVATION: An award-winning pilot project launched by the Norwegian Police Service utilises artificial intelligence (AI), assisted reality and automated processes to help crime scene investigators enhance the quality of investigations during the ‘golden hour’, improve outcomes, and reduce costs; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to Dr Bente Skattør and Superintendent Kjeld Helland-Hansen about the AI4Interviews project.
10th December 2025
ANALYSIS: Amid media headlines that Australia is in a ‘youth crime crisis’, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has announced an “adult time for violent crime” approach that could see children as young as 14 tried in adult courts and facing long sentences; Macquarie University Associate Professor in Criminology Dr Alex Simpson argues that the data doesn’t support such an approach, which is politicising youth violence.
FEATURE: Latest research from Cardiff University and the Stamp Out Spiking charity highlights the scale of spiking across the UK, the various methods used, and most worryingly the fact that around three-quarters of victims don’t report the crime to police; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the insights already emerging from this research, as well as other seasonal initiatives to keep the public safe during the festive season.
ANALYSIS: Fraud is now the most common form of crime across the world, and the impact on victims can be devasting, but in many countries it remains a low policing priority; recent research by Dr Rasha Kassem, who leads Aston University’s Fraud Research Group, and Professor Umut Turksen of the University of Exeter, highlights that structural reforms and extra funding alone are unlikely to shift the balance to improve the response to fraud, unless policing can redefine value, harm and legitimacy in its daily practice.
INNOVATION: An evidence-based review of Thames Valley Police’s deployment of its Tactical Cycle unit in public order operations is calling on the College of Policing to develop Authorised Professional Practice for the approach, in an effort to encourage other forces in England and Wales to adopt the agile and versatile resource that can also improve public engagement and build trust and confidence, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
OPINION: While the recent Blue Lights TV drama set in Northern Ireland may have been pure fiction, former police superintendent Martin Gallagher, now an author and terrorism expert, believes that scenarios that played out in the latest series highlighted some of the key challenges facing policing today, and reinforced the need to “reconsider the figurative handcuffs” and allow officers to successfully undertake what is often “a hard, dirty and dangerous job”.
FEATURE: A recent independent review into structural racism within the Metropolitan Police has warned that the organisation’s systems and culture “align to maintain, rather than dismantle, the conditions that cause racial harm”, and that major structural change will be needed to remove the systemic racism that is “baked in” to the design of the institution if efforts to tackle the problem are to be successful in the long term, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.
INNOVATION: Automation and digitisation are delivering increased efficiency and other benefits across wider society, and there are significant potential gains for UK policing and the criminal justice system; police and technology advisor Paul Kennedy, and former Detective Inspector Tina Macleod, an out-of-court resolutions (OoCRs) specialist, explore some of the opportunities arising for policing and criminal justice across a range of areas, and take a closer look at how the use of OoCRs could be transformed by the new technology.
INNOVATION: A new film produced to help police and other professionals recognise cuckooing and understand the perspectives of ‘alpha victims’ – young victims who go on to become offenders themselves – is due to be trialled by police forces shortly, as the latest addition to a wider toolkit to help practitioners identify and act on the risks and vulnerabilities around the issue, as Dr Laura Bainbridge, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice at the University of Leeds, explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.
FEATURE: Speaking at a recent webinar hosted by the Canadian Association of Police Governance, Police Research Lab Director Professor Craig Bennell highlighted the importance of an “informed public” if policing leaders and policymakers are to base practice and decision-making on data drawn from public surveys; he also reiterated the need for “positive public contact”, the value of factual clarity, and the benefits of a calmer police communications response to major incidents, as Policing Insights Christine Townsend reports.
INTERVIEW: Following the Government’s announcement last month that the role of police and crime commissioner will be abolished in 2028, Emily Spurrell, Chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, spoke to Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass about why she believes the Home Office is wrong to overhaul police governance in England and Wales, why it will not save the money cited, and how it could damage other areas of policing.
OPINION: Despite growing momentum across society for the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI), policing – like many other sectors – is proving to be big on ambition but slow on adoption of the new technology; Martin Taylor, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO of Content Guru, explores the reasons behind the slow adoption, the challenges around public trust and confidence, and how the successful introduction of AI into critical healthcare communications could provide lessons for policing.
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.
OPINION: As the first digital natives of AI-fluent Generations Alpha and Beta come of age, law enforcement agencies and policymakers will face an unprecedented criminal landscape shaped by tech tools, hyper-personalized algorithms, and borderless digital worlds; Cognyte’s Yakir Bitterman, a Webint Product Owner and open-source intelligence specialist, explores the behavioral trends among digital natives, and looks ahead at the changing and challenging misinformation threat landscape that awaits them.
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: A recent report by the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre which explores the responses to family violence and domestic abuse in Victoria Police and Greater Manchester Police has highlighted the continuing challenges around successfully implementing support and change programmes for perpetrators of domestic abuse when services for victim/survivors are still inadequate, 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: Following the announcement earlier this month that the role of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales will be abolished in 2028, Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett looks at the background to the decision, reaction to it, and the challenges that will arise – from potential force boundary changes to the likelihood of increased politicisation of governance – which mean that the end of the PCC experiment is going to be much more than just an administrative change.
ANALYSIS: Attrition rates in UK rape cases have prompted considerable concerns, but data analysis led by Dr Fiona Vera-Gray and Jo Lovett of London Metropolitan University (as part of the Operation Soteria Data Pillar) has highlighted that significant numbers of police-recorded rapes originated through victim/survivors discussions with officers or the DASH assessment process, with victims having no intention to report the crime – a process described as ‘telling not reporting’ – and subsequently do not support the investigation.
INTERVIEW: Developed by an academic team at the University of Sheffield, the Sexual Trafficking Identification Matrix (STIM) assesses adverts on adult service websites and analyses factors such as the photographs, language and details used to help law enforcement identify victims and perpetrators of human trafficking or sexual exploitation, as Dr Xavier L’Hoiry explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.
