Time for Change? Reflections on the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales: Day 2
Time for Change? Reflections on the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales is the title of our 2022 conference, taking place across two days between Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th September at the Verena Holmes Building. You can find our more information on our talks and speakers for Day 2 below, or take a look at the full agenda in the downloads section. Click here for more information on Day 1.
Agenda
08:45 - 09:00 Main conference
09:00 - 10:25 Police Culture
10:25 - 11:35 Cybercrime and Digital
11:40 - 12:50 Leadership
13:40 - 14:40 Evidence Based Policing
14:40 - 16:00 Training (Parallel sessions)
The Strategic Review: Day two themes
Andy Higgins, Police Foundation
In this session Andy will briefly set out the Review’s findings on key themes for day two of the conference: police culture and leadership, policing in a digital age, Evidence Based Policing and police training and learning.
‘To be or not be a police officer?’ Culture and identities within policing and the organisational challenges ahead.
Professor Sarah Charman, University of Portsmouth
The Police Foundation’s Strategic Review of Policing has documented a ‘crisis of confidence’ in policing highlighting a capacity challenge, a capability challenge and an organisational challenge as its core concerns. The police service is facing unprecedented demand in violence, abuse and exploitation on the one hand and in non-crime on the other and is attempting to tackle this in a rapidly evolving post-pandemic world amidst falling rates of public trust and confidence and with an inexperienced workforce and a radical new qualifications framework. To improve the future policing of citizens, solutions in the form of enhanced legitimacy, justice and trust are constructed as valid objectives to meet these challenges. But how far do these concerns of legitimacy, justice and trust also need to be considered within the policing organisation itself and towards its own employees? This presentation will consider the issue of the changing and recalcitrant cultures and identities within policing, their impact upon the police workforce and their implications for recruitment, retention and ultimately for organisational justice.
Take a look at Sarah Charman's presentation.
Turning Knowledge into Practice: The Role and Context of Tutoring in Contemporary Policing
Professor Tom Cockcroft, Leeds Beckett University
Discourse on police professionalisation often appears to draw upon an assumption that knowledge translates straightforwardly into practice in respect of police learning and development. Taking the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales as a starting point, this presentation will seek to understand how the concept of a ‘learning culture’ plays out in respect of the tension between knowledge and practice. In doing so, it will draw upon recent research undertaken into the challenges of providing effective tutoring of new police recruits which highlights a number of areas of tension; rhetoric versus reality, structural constraints and organizational versus individual needs. In doing so, this presentation will seek to highlight the importance of tutoring as a means of effectively ensuring that the PEQF translates into enhanced workplace practice.
Take a look at Tom Cockroft's presentation.
Facial composite construction: past, present… and future?
Dr Harjinder Lallie, University of Warwick
Notwithstanding the benefits that AI can bring to a digital investigation, this area is currently under-researched. This presentation outlines some of the work done at the University of Warwick in applying AI to: age estimation, location determination from object detection, and firearm detection from images. We also share a project which creates pseudo images of children which can potentially be used to train ML algorithms.
Dr Stuart Gibson, University of Kent
We developed a novel method for identifying offenders based on eyewitness’ memories of serious crimes. Our EFIT6 facial composite system is now used by police forces in 25 countries spanning 6 continents, with 378 systems currently in use worldwide. Before the adoption of our method, all commercial facial-composite systems utilised a feature-based approach to construct pictorial representations of unknown offenders. However, systems relying on the need for recall and description of individual features do not match human cognitive processes and are inherently inefficient and error strewn. Conversely, our method is embodied in an iterative process during which the witness selects whole faces that resemble the suspect from image arrays presented on a computer screen.
This presentation first outlines our own approach in the context of the historical deployment of facial composite systems. We then introduce our current work investigating the application of electroencephalography (EEG) and rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) to this interesting facial identification problem.
Keywords: facial identification, evolutionary algorithm, rapid serial visual presentation.
Take a look at Stuart Gibson's presentation.
Privacy in police digital forensic investigation
Professor Paul Van Schaik, Teeside University
Alastair Irons, Abertay University
Karen Renaud, University of Strathclyde
Reconciling the security requirements of society at large with the right to privacy of individual citizens remains a challenge. Citizens potentially respond to perceived erosions of privacy by acquiring and using privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) to manage their online privacy. However, this response can potentially hinder police digital forensic investigations. Privacy is also a factor that should be taken into consideration during any police digital forensic investigation. As part of the ongoing research we created a Privacy Respecting EthiCal framework (PRECEPt) to encourage the consideration of ethics and privacy in any digital investigations (Ferguson, Renaud, Wilford & Irons, 2020). This work provides a theoretical analysis rather than analysis of stakeholders’ perceptions. Moreover, it focuses on digital forensics data collection and investigation, but does not address PET use by citizens. The aim of our current work is therefore to analyse how police digital forensic investigations can be informed by privacy considerations and affected by citizens’ use of PETs. We interviewed police digital investigators from a range of UK forces. In this paper we will present the results of thematic analysis of the interviews and our initial considerations on the potential implications for digital forensic investigations.
Take a look at Van Schaik, Irons and Renaud's presentation.
The Future of Policing Cybercrime: Reflections on the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales
Dr Paul Stephens, Canterbury Christ Church University
This presentation will reflect on the future of policing cybercrime following the publication of the ‘Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales’, chaired by Sir Michael Barber and carried out by the Police Foundation [1]. The report states over 40% of all fraud offences in 2021 were cyber-based but the policing of this is still largely stuck in the past requiring a strategic rethink. There are skills shortages in in areas such as financial investigation, data science, and digital forensics that must be addressed. These skills shortages could lead to a lack of confidence in the police that could lead to victims and their families engaging professionals as cyber-vigilantes to act on their behalf where policing has failed them. The report makes several recommendations to address these issues and this presentation will explore these considering their potential impact.
Take a look at Paul Stephens's presentation.
Bibliography
[1] Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales (2022) Available at: https://www.policingreview.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/srpew_final_report.pdf (Accessed: 06 September 2022).
Leading with evidence: senior police leadership and the Triple T: Dr Peter Neyroud, University of Cambridge (ONLINE)
Associate Professor Peter Neyroud, University of Cambridge
Take a look at Peter Neyroud's presentation.
Leadership, recruitment, and a frontline Leadership programme
Kurtis Christoforides, Police Now
Police Now is an independent charitable social enterprise with a mission to transform communities, reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, and increase the public’s confidence in the police service by recruiting, developing and inspiring outstanding and diverse individuals to be leaders in society and on the policing frontline.
Police Now has partnered with 34 police forces in England and Wales since 2014, recruiting and developing over 2,100 police officers through three core programmes, namely the two-year National Graduate Leadership Programme and National Detective Programme focused on recruiting, training and developing outstanding graduates and career changers, and new Frontline Leadership Programme - a one-year development programme which prepares police constables with high leadership potential for promotion to sergeant rank, with a particular focus on the progression of women and individuals from an ethnic minority background.
The purpose of this session is to share learning from Police Now’s programmes on how to attract, recruit and progress diverse and outstanding individuals, and why the development of the policing workforce (focused on the Code of Ethics, reflective practice, critical analysis, organisational justice, procedural justice, evidence-based policing, resilience and wellbeing) is critical to help the service rebuild trust and legitimacy.
Thinking Strategically About Policing: the Role of Evidence-based Policing
Professor Karen Bullock, University of Surrey
In this paper I will set out briefly what evidence-based policing involves. I will consider the challenges and issues involved in delivery of evidence-based policing. I will consider the recommendations that the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales made in regard to evidence-based policing. I then offer some reflections about lessons learnt about implementing evidence-based approaches in police organisations focusing on the linked issues of leadership, developing staff understanding, and infrastructure. I will illustrate using some examples from recent research in this area.
Take a look at Karen Bullock's presentation.
Reflections on gender and policing
Professor Jenny Brown, London School of Economics and Political Science
In considering gender and policing, this paper makes reference to the policing of women and women in policing. It is argued that behaviour externally towards women in society and internally to women in policing is influenced by the police occupational culture. Exemplar evidence of poor performance in the policing of women and poor behaviour towards women in policing is given as well as identifying some of the concepts used to explain these occurrences. A brief review of some of the reforms employed to reform the culture indicate their limitations leaving open the question: how to change the police.
Take a look at Jenny Brown's presentation.
Direct Entry Detective Training: Challenges and Opportunities
Professor Steve Tong, Kingston University
Steve Clayman T/Commander, Metropolitan Police
This paper explores some of the findings from action research presenting the experiences of direct entry detectives. The paper analyses the role of training and education in police work with specific reference to criminal investigation and the training of detectives. The rollout of direct entry programmes has provoked a range of responses and questioned the sustainability of the route into some police services. This paper argues that a variety of entry routes into detective work can be beneficial to the professionalisation of investigation but there are substantial challenges to ensuring direct entry and similar routes into detectives roles is a sustainable method of recruitment and development.
Key findings from an evaluation of the Police Now Detective Academy 2019 to 2021
Dr Martin O’Neill, Canterbury Christ Church University
Take a look at Tong, Clayman and O'Neill's presentation.
Linking Self-Legitimacy with Epistemic Authority.
Rich Honess, Canterbury Christ Church University
Police Legitimacy has been an important topic within the policing world for some time, and one of the emergent subjects that has arisen is that of self-legitimacy. The sense that the individual officer themselves see their role, position and authority as right or correct. Many studies have shown that Self-Legitimacy is important for officers to be effective.
With the drive for professionalisation through education, and the building of epistemic authority, this study looks at whether there is a link between Epistemic Authority and what other factors affect officer Self Legitimacy.
Initial Findings from LTU’s PEQF Programmes, In partnership with West Yorkshire Police.
Jacob Thandi, Leeds Trinity University
(theme is “PEQF Student Survey Findings and Exploration”)
In May 2019, Leeds Trinity University (LTU) was awarded the contract to deliver the PEQF programmes as part of Operation Uplift, working in partnership with West Yorkshire Police to support the pledge to recruit 20,000 Police Officers nationally. This presentation showcases preliminary findings from a programme-wide research project which aims to assess the success, perceptions, and challenges of this new direction in Officer education. Working with data precured through anonymous surveys disseminated to students on LTU’s Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship and Degree Holders’ Entry Programme, the emergent themes of Officer wellbeing, institutional partnerships, perceived worth of the programme, and delivery challenges will be critically presented. As an institution, LTU are part of a select number of higher education providers of the PEQF (some of which are consortiums of different universities) which places the experiences of our staff and students at the forefront of the professionalisation of the police service. It is hoped that this will feed into a wider conversation about police education and HEIs and build on existing scholarship into the PEQF programmes.
Take a look at Jacob Thandi's presentation.