Research

FEATURE: A photographic approach to enabling young people to talk about their community – part of a series of studies on policing ‘seldom-heard groups’ published by Police Scotland, the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and the Scottish Police Authority – has offered a fresh perspective and greater insight into one of Scotland’s more deprived communities, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

RESEARCH: A new landmark academic study presents a definitive assessment of the performance of multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA), measures that monitor around 88,000 offenders in England and Wales; Dr Natalie Mann, who led the study, spoke to Policing Insight’s James Sweetland about the striking findings provided by the research, the professional messages it sends, and a personal motivation behind the work.

FEATURE: A report into the policing of care-experienced and LGBTQI+ young people in Scotland – part of a series of studies on policing ‘seldom-heard groups’ published by Police Scotland, the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and the Scottish Police Authority – has recommended changes to police training, declaring being care experienced as a ‘protected characteristic’, and adopting a ‘policing with empathy’ approach, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

LATEST RESEARCH: This summary curates the key policing-related research that's been published online in the last week, with links to the original journal articles, and selected abstracts.

FEATURE: New research from the Australian Institute of Criminology presents shocking findings on the level of domestic violence among members of outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs); with higher rates of violence and lower conviction rates, it’s a complex challenge for police officers in New South Wales to solve, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

FEATURE: Several European countries have experienced the devastating effects of often low-tech fatal terrorist attacks on public spaces such as shopping malls, concert halls and city squares; now a new EU-funded project involving police, public safety stakeholders and the private sector aims to develop innovative security measures using artificial intelligence (AI) and integrated technologies to make public spaces more secure, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

LATEST RESEARCH: This summary curates the key policing-related research that's been published online in the last week, with links to the original journal articles, and selected abstracts.

FEATURE: The authors of a new report – the second in a series of five on policing ‘seldom-heard groups’ published by Police Scotland, the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and the Scottish Police Authority – have highlighted greater visibility and engagement, better cultural awareness and more funding among the key steps to building better relationships between Police Scotland and refugee and asylum seeker communities, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Evidence from a series of police reviews and inquiries in recent years has revealed serious and systemic misogyny and violence against women and girls in policing. Both police culture, and police vetting, misconduct, and disciplinary practices have been identified as contributing to this situation. This event, supported by Policing Insight as media partner, brings police researchers, stakeholders and practitioners together to explore these issues, share knowledge in the field, and ultimately shape a research agenda for the future.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: LEPH2023 Europe (21-24 May, supported by Policing Insight as media partner, is the first regional European conference exploring the complex and diverse intersections of law enforcement and public health, involving practitioners, policy makers and researchers from these and other related sectors. It carries on the international LEPH conference series, with an opportunity to focus on key regional issues.

LATEST RESEARCH: This summary curates the key policing-related research that's been published online in the last week, with links to the original journal articles, and selected abstracts.

FEATURE: After a series of high-profile incidents and damaging reviews, levels of public trust in policing have fallen significantly; now a new briefing by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology highlights the current trends around public trust and confidence in policing, the barriers to building that trust, and what policing can do to reverse the decline, as Policing Insight’s Keith Potter reports.

ANALYSIS: The authors of a new report – the first in a series of five on policing ‘seldom heard groups’ published by Police Scotland, the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and the Scottish Police Authority – have called for more to be done to overcome the challenges of policing people with multiple social identities and characteristics such as race, religion, sexuality and disability, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

LATEST RESEARCH: This summary curates the key policing-related research that's been published online in the last week, with links to the original journal articles, and selected abstracts.

ANALYSIS: Latest research from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime suggests the global market for cocaine has hit new record levels despite the interruption of parts of the trade during COVID-19, with a significant increase in production, the emergence of supply chain specialists, and traffickers exploiting new markets and international events such as the war in Ukraine, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The recent attacks in the UK on two men leaving mosques, along with this year’s Jehovah’s Witness Hall shootings in Hamburg and Koran burning in Stockholm, have highlighted once again the threats to places of worship and their congregations; in the last in a series of articles on the PROTECTOR project, and ahead of this week’s conference on the issue, Policing Insight’s Andy Staniforth looks at latest initiatives to tackle the threat, and the key themes set to be explored at Tuesday’s event.

ANALYSIS: New data published by Canada’s Tracking (In)Justice project suggest that the average number of police-involved deaths each year between 2011-2022 rose by two thirds, compared to the annual average figure for the previous decade; project members Andrew Crosby, Alexander McClelland and Tanya L. Sharpe believe that the increase, together with the racial disparity and jurisdictional variations within the figures, support calls for greater accountability, transparency and scrutiny of police conduct in Canada.

LATEST RESEARCH: This summary curates the key policing-related research that's been published online in the last week, with links to the original journal articles, and selected abstracts.

INNOVATION: With the publication of Baroness Casey’s Review the most recent development to highlight the importance of integrity in policing, the need for more effective employee vetting and screening processes is once again under the spotlight; Dr Matt Bland, Associate Professor in Evidence-Based Policing at Cambridge University, outlines the work undertaken by Master’s student Nick Dale to develop a screening solution that could be a gamechanger for UK policing.

FEATURE: Australia is the latest country to give serious consideration to criminalising coercive control, a step taken in the UK in 2015; new research published by Melbourne’s Monash University suggests that while the majority of victim-survivors believe such a step would be beneficial, they also argue significant investment in police training and a ‘cultural shift’ in the policing of domestic abuse would be required to make any new offence effective, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

LATEST RESEARCH: This summary curates the key policing-related research that's been published online in the last week, with links to the original journal articles, and selected abstracts.

FEATURE: Facial recognition technology is often criticised for its purported disproportionality, with police use of this tool already banned in some parts of the world; but a new academic study – hailed by the Met and South Wales Police – challenges this narrative, arguing that British policing is deploying live facial recognition tech that is effective and avoids the problem of disproportionality, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

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 criminology – the study of crime, how we think about it, what causes crime, the way that criminal justice agencies respond to offenders, and how all of this can affect what you do as police officers.

RESEARCH: For several years, successive UK governments have vowed to crack down on antisocial behaviour, and with an election likely next year, the current Conservative Government has pledged to take fresh action; but as Leeds Beckett Criminology Lecturer Kirsty-Louise Cameron points out, with vague and often differing definitions of what antisocial behaviour is, some people could find themselves facing eviction and even prosecution for actions many would consider acceptable.