Dr Yinthe Feys Since the acknowledgement of police discretion – that is the freedom that police officers have to make decisions within the legal boundaries of their work – in the 1960s, there have been a lot of studies on this topic. Much of this research has explored the factors that affect police decision-making and, thus, how police discretion is used. Discretion has various advantages as it provides the opportunity for flexible decision-making but, at the same time, it could result in intuitive, ad hoc decisions and ultimately lead to inequalities in the provision of police services. As su ..read more

Dr Rashid Minhas In criminal investigations, the pervasive influence of prejudicial stereotypes and implicit biases on decision-making processes has been extensively documented. Studies highlight how these biases can lead to flawed judgments, impacting interactions with individuals from stereotyped groups as demonstrated by research from Hall, Hall, and Perry (2016) and Minhas and Frumkin (2023). Despite efforts to address such biases, challenges persist, affecting investigative procedures and outcomes. Studies by Minhas and Walsh (2018; 2021) have highlighted how these stereotypes can subcons ..read more

Dr Michael K. Bryden In his book Why People Obey the Law (1990), the psychologist Tom Tyler sought to understand how the public evaluate police legitimacy and whether those evaluations affect people’s attitudes and behaviours. Tyler’s work has contributed to an explosion of police legitimacy scholarship, leading many policing agencies to adopt procedural justice training. Yet limited research had been done that examines the police’s beliefs about their own legitimacy. This blog provides an overview of police power-holder legitimacy and some findings from a mixed-methods study on police recruit ..read more

Dr Samantha Weston, Dr Clare Griffiths and Dr Anne-Marie Day The killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black African American male, on the 25th May 2020 set off a catalyst of events that brought into question the role and conduct of police officers. Footage of the arrest shows a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while he was pinned to the floor for over 9 minutes. The event led to protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism in both the US and the UK. Shortly after on the 10th March 2021, in the search of missing Sarah Everard, the remains o ..read more

Dr David Rowlands, Dr Jana Kujundzic, Dr Iain Brennan and Dr Nicola O’Leary Continuing a trend seen over recent years, police-recorded crimes of domestic abuse (DA) in England and Wales for 2022 was 7.7% higher than the year ending March 2021, and 14.1% higher than the year ending March 2020. While these figures suggest growing incidence, increases may also reflect improved recording by the police and greater willingness of victims to report. Nonetheless, that police made just 33 arrests per 100 DA-related crimes is alarming, as is the decrease in the Crown Prosecution Service charge rate for ..read more

Professor Wesley G. Skogan During the past 25 years, American policing moved from a focus on responding to crimes in progress or (more often) already committed toward proactive strategies for preventing or deterring future crimes from occurring in the first place. Rather than cleaning up in the aftermath of crime, police have taken responsibility for its occurrence. This seemed to work for a while, as crime declined during the 1990s, but in the mid-2000s violent crime began to grow. Police now had responsibility for crime, and this led almost inevitably to more heavily targeted and aggressive ..read more

Dr Raphael Schlembach Over the course of two weeks in May 2022, the long running and much delayed public inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales has held public evidence hearings. The testimonies given and the associated documents released are an opportunity to learn more about the decisions taken at management level to insert undercover officers into prominent political campaign groups – a practice that has been referred to as the ‘spycops’ scandal. The Undercover Policing Inquiry investigates two historical secret police units: the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the Nati ..read more

The British Society of Criminology (BSC) Policing Network awards an annual prize to acknowledge and celebrate excellence in policing research. In line with society rules, nominations are only open to members of the BSC. When reviewing the nominated articles, the panel look for the advancement of policing studies, or a valuable contribution to the field of policing studies either through innovations in theory, methodology or the application of research in a sole-authored journal article. The prize is sponsored by Policy Press. This year’s prize winner is Dr Jonah Miller, for his article ‘The To ..read more

Richard Hester At the end of the 2021/2022 football season, the inevitable pitch invasions started to occur and some unpleasant scenes were repeated up and down the country. It seems only a matter of time before a very serious incident occurs in this context. Despite entering the playing area being a criminal offence under S.4 of the Football (Offences) Act 1991, it has essentially become an end of season ritual for clubs that win the league, get promoted, avoid relegation, get relegated, make the play offs or make the play off final. Even before the end of the season, there was a reported inc ..read more

Dr Davina Cull In 2020 we set up a lived experience advisor scheme at the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall. The scheme aims to engage people who have an experience of the criminal justice system in commissioning, policy and strategic change. Framed as an approach which contributes towards social justice by enabling people affected by crime to have a voice and influence change – the scheme moves beyond tokenism and towards a model of co-production where partners and lived experience advisors work together on discrete projects and tasks which benefit from their ..read more