Response policing

FEATURE: Victim-survivors of violence against women and girls regularly find themselves treated as offenders, according to new research from the Centre for Women’s Justice, with issues such as a culture of disbelief, a lack of understanding of domestic abuse and coercive control, a failure to implement a trauma-informed response, and discrimination against marginalised women all contributing to injustice for victim-survivors and lack of trust, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: New South Wales (NSW) Police is facing a $1.75 billion psychological injury bill and a co-responder mental health programme known as PACER that operates in only 12 of 57 area commands almost a decade after its first pilot within the force; strategy and reform consultant Kavitha Vipulananda compares the police approach in NSW with co-responder models in other Australian states and asks what it would take to scale a programme that works.

ANALYSIS: The Right Care, Right Person policy to reduce police involvement with those suffering from mental health issues was introduced with promises to save officers’ time; but coroners continue to raise concerns about its impact on the vulnerable, writes Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass.

FEATURE: A new resource package for forces in England and Wales is designed to improve the response to cases of witchcraft, spirit possession and ritualistic abuse (WSPRA) includes an operational briefing, case studies and academic research, along with calls for police and other statutory agencies to shed their “institutionalised disbelief” of WSPRA reports in an effort to improve awareness and recognition of an offence that is barely reflected in recorded crime figures, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: The police response to the murder of Henry Nowak by Vickrum Digwa has once again led to accusations of ‘two tier’ policing in the UK and prompted a review by police chiefs of the service’s anti-racism commitment; Dr John Coxhead, Visiting Professor of Policing at De Montfort and Loughborough Universities, argues that a “reset of common sense in policing” is required, to ensure officers get the basics right and deal with the crime in front of them, rather than being expected to address issues of social policy.

INTERVIEW: Ahead of this week’s first UK National Response Policing Conference, ACC Matt Boyle, the National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Response Policing, spoke to Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend about changing perception of the response role as a specialism in its own right, the importance of response officers in the investigation process, and the need to recognise the role as the interaction where the public experience policing most directly.

FEATURE: A new mental health response and support system based on joint working between An Garda Síochána and the Health Service Executive, which involves officers with specialist mental health training working alongside clinicians and the creation of a community-based forum for referrals, could be rolled out nationally after a pilot of the Community Access Support Team (CAST) initiative in Limerick saw a significant drop in detentions of those in crisis, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

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.

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: Policing stands at a pivotal moment in tackling domestic abuse, demanding better alignment, data, culture and technology to protect victims, prevent harm, and drive a smarter, evidence-led systemwide response. Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Domestic Abuse, and Deputy Assistant Commissioner Helen Millichap, the National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection (NCVPP) Director, introduce the Policing Insight thematic report, ‘Evolving police responses to domestic abuse’.

OPINION: Canadian policing faces a challenging contradiction around its response to mental illness, according to new research by Brandon University’s Professor Christopher J. Schneider and Assistant Professor Ania Theuer, and Professor Stacey Hannem of Wilfrid Laurier University, who argue that law enforcement’s framing of officers’ mental health struggles as “occupational stress injuries” contrasts sharply with the stigmatizing approach to the risks posed by mentally ill members of the public.

FEATURE: A College of Policing evaluation of the use of a video first response (VFR) approach to non-emergency domestic abuse calls has found that VFR can significantly reduce response times for victims, while also improving victim safeguarding and perceptions of being believed by officers – but there’s little evidence so far to suggest an increase in positive criminal justice outcomes, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: A judgment delivered this week by the Supreme Court of New South Wales, which found that a strip search carried out by New South Wales Police of festival goer Raya Meredith (the lead plaintiff in a class action) was unlawful, could have significant implications for the way police across Australia carry out strip searches, says UNSW Associate Professor and Senior Law Lecturer, Dr Vicki Sentas.

ANALYSIS: Despite the Uplift recruitment programme, research suggests the public feel police are still less visible and less responsive, and the Government has now pledged a further 13,000 neighbourhood police officers by 2029; in the last in this current series of articles on workforce development, Ian Wiggett looks at the availability of the workforce, the way it is deployed, and why ultimately what will matter is whether the public notices the difference.

FEATURE: New research by Paris Graduate School PhD researcher David Graves, a former UK fraud squad detective, suggests that the creation of a National Crime Co-ordination Centre could enhance collaboration between police and private investigators, co-ordinate the multi-agency response to major and emerging threats including organised crime, and improve public confidence in policing, as he explained to Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen.

INNOVATION: With the response to those in mental health crisis a challenge for policing in many jurisdictions, a new programme launched by New Zealand Police has seen handover times to emergency departments for those detained under the country’s Mental Health Act reduced to one hour, with a long-term aim of completing successful handovers within 15 minutes, as programme lead Inspector Matthew Morris explained to Policing Insight’s Tina Orr Munro.

FEATURE: Despite many initiatives to tackle the high volume and harm of domestic abuse, victim-survivors are still being failed, says a new report, with a definition of domestic violence that is “too broad for effective operational policing”, a lack of resources to deal with growing and increasingly complex demand, and a risk assessment system that is “not fit for purpose” among the main barriers to improving service delivery, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) approach to responding to those in mental health crisis was adopted by policing across the UK in 2023, and an initial evaluation last year found that forces already perceived a drop in the number of unnecessary call outs; but pioneers of the approach have warned that failing to implement RCRP in line with the developed model “dilutes” the success of the response, as Policing Insight’s Tina Orr Munro reports.

INNOVATION: A new digital ‘data-rich’ form introduced by the Metropolitan Police Service to improve the effectiveness of processing people detained under s136 of the Mental Health Act is also helping to reduce detentions, free up officer time, and gather valuable information about the barriers and pinchpoints relating to finding suitable health-based places of safety for those in mental health crisis, as Policing Insight’s Tina Orr Munro reports.

FEATURE: The first survey to focus specifically on the use of section 136 detentions under the Mental Health Act by police forces in England and Wales has revealed significant disparities in the way the powers are used – including the number of people detained, the use of police vehicles to transfer detainees, handover times, and the use of custody – as Policing Insight’s Tina Orr Munro reports.

FEATURE: A new National Police Chiefs’ Council Mental Health and Policing Strategy will place the Right Care, Right Person approach at the centre of the policing response to those in mental health crisis, with renewed emphasis on tackling disproportionality and measures to improve data capture also key elements of the as yet unpublished document, as Policing Insight’s Tina Orr Munro reports.

FEATURE: Scottish Justice Secretary Angela Constance has praised Scottish police superintendents for their role in leading innovation and collaboration that has ensured Police Scotland can meet the challenges of modern crime – despite a backdrop of a “challenging financial environment” which has left the force and the Government with “no quick fixes” and limited choices, as Policing Insight’s Martin Gallagher reports.

OPINION: With a growing drive in Australia for a co-responder rather than police-first response to those in mental health crisis, University of Melbourne Research Officer Dr Panos Karanikolas, and La Trobe University’s Dr Chris Maylea and Hamilton Kennedy, explore what works better and where, with research suggesting people with lived experience of mental health issues want more than ambulances replacing the police as crisis responders.

OPINION: With the UK Government recently announcing that the Vagrancy Act will be repealed by spring next year, Generation Rent Chief Executive Ben Twomey looks at the background to a 200-year-old piece of “outdated” legislation that is still used to criminalise some aspects of homelessness, and considers what may take its place.