Abstract Police forces in England and Wales are facing sustained resource constraint, rising demand, and intensified scrutiny around legitimacy and effectiveness. Within this environment, football policing represents a significant and routinized draw on capacity, costing over £70 million annually and abstracting substantial officer hours from core policing functions. Yet, despite increasing evidence that large-scale football violence has declined and disorder has become increasingly episodic and situational, fixtures continue to be governed primarily through highly resourced public order public safety (POPS) architectures. This paper addresses the organizational puzzle this misalignment presents. Drawing on 114 structured observations across 17 forces conducted through the National Observer Programme for Football Policing, the study reframes football policing as an organizational and productivity problem rather than solely a public order issue. The analysis asserts that contemporary disorder is predominantly low-level, mobile, and interactional, emerging within predictable spatial and temporal hotspots rather than merely through sustained mobilization by pre-identified ‘risk’ groups. It contends that research-informed, Operational Football Officer-centred configurations—characterized by early, mobile, contextually sensitive intervention—were at least as effective as orthodox POPS deployments in preventing escalation, while delivering substantial reductions in resource abstraction. Deploying P.A.J. Waddington’s distinction between ‘on-the-job’ and ‘in-the-job’ trouble, the paper argues that the persistence of POPS orthodoxy is better explained by accountability logics and governance arrangements than by empirical necessity. Precautionary mobilization distributes professional exposure defensibly within hierarchical command structures, even where it is inefficient relative to contemporary risk patterns. The paper concludes by outlining a pathway towards adaptive, oversight-based command capable of aligning policing practice with evolving risk while preserving escalation capacity and organizational accountability.
This article explores police discretion and performance management in the Lincolnshire Police-G4S Strategic Partnership-a landmark 229 pound million outsourcing arrangement which ran from 2012 to 2022. Interpreting original qualitative and quantitative data relating to 999 emergency call handling through a structure-agency lens, it advances three key findings: (1) the local contract-based 999 performance management structure enabled some degree of police discretion, allowing police actors to turn-up performance metrics to maximize G4S service delivery and turn-down these metrics to accommodate public demand (this is termed 'contractual police discretion'); (2) this structure also constrained police discretion, preventing police actors from responding to public need when their proposed solution necessitated a redrawing of the contract (this is termed 'non-contractual police discretion'); and (3) to circumvent these constraints, police actors played their ultimate discretion card-exiting the contract altogether. These findings contribute to scholarship on discretion, outsourcing, and performance management and reveal some of the key successes and failures of the Lincolnshire Police-G4S Strategic Partnership.
The accurate identification of 911 calls involving suicidal ideation is essential for mobilizing an effective system-level response. Crisis call diversion (CCD) programs that embed mental health counselors in 911 emergency communication centers can address key challenges faced by 911 call-takers in flagging suicidal calls, as the counselors possess clinical expertise to ask targeted mental health questions and do not face the same time-related pressures as call-takers. Using administrative data from a well-established CCD program, we found that embedded counselors identified more than fourteen times as many suicide threats as 911 call-takers. Our analysis of counselors' narratives suggests that call-takers did not misclassify calls; rather, counselors used their skills to collect more details on the complexity of the caller's needs. Counselors enhanced on-scene safety by communication with Dispatch and officers about callers' circumstances, as well as by de-escalating callers, safety planning, and encouraging cooperation.
Abstract The murder of Sarah Everard in 2021 by a police officer and subsequent misconduct cases have severely eroded public trust in British policing. In response, a senior Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officer initiated research into neighbourhood policing to bridge the gap between the police and the public. This study used a literature review and focus groups with officers and civilians to assess neighbourhood policing. The findings revealed challenges such as role ambiguity, inconsistent implementation, inadequate training, and limited resources. Despite these issues, neighbourhood policing was seen as crucial for rebuilding trust and community engagement. The research emphasized the need for a clear, universally accepted definition and doctrine for neighbourhood policing to guide its implementation. With proper support and strategic focus, neighbourhood policing could restore public confidence in the police.
Research investigating police academy attrition and factors influencing it remains limited. This study examines organizational drivers of attrition using the 2022 Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies, analyzing organizational data from 488 US academies to predict six types of failure: injury, physical, academic, disciplinary, voluntary withdrawal, and overall attrition. Negative binomial regression revealed that higher stress environments and longer training hours predicted increased voluntary withdrawals and total failures. Greater emphasis on traditional policing instruction elevated disciplinary, voluntary, injury-related, and overall failures, while college-affiliated-based academies exhibited significantly higher academic failure rates, emphasizing the effect of institutional philosophies on cadet attrition.. Additionally, dormitory residence was protective against academic failure, while higher proportions of sworn academy instructors were associated with reduced physical failures. These findings offer actionable, evidence-based strategies for academy reform, and future research should examine their downstream effects on officer field performance.
Existing research offers considerable direction on theoretically grounded strategies for crime prevention, where treatment should be delivered, and when treatment should be applied; however, much less is known about the amount of treatment ideally needed to generate a reduction in violent crime. The current study fills this gap by examining the following critical questions: (1) What is the relationship between treatment dosage applied to hot spots and the immediate impact on violent street crime? (2) What is the relationship between treatment dosage applied to hot spots and the subsequent impact on violent street crime? (3) Does the relationship between treatment dosage and violent crime incidents vary depending on the preintervention level of violent crime? Data from four cities across two years were used to address these research questions. Results provide guidance on the relationship between amount of treatment and crime reduction at hot spot locations including specific recommendations depending on city size.
Qualified immunity, as defined by the Supreme Court case Harlow v. Fitzgerald 457 U.S. 800 (1982), grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated 'clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' In the context of law enforcement, reformers contest that qualified immunity should be removed for the sake of advancing police reform by providing a means for police accountability. Through a national-level survey (N = 921), this study observationally and experimentally examines support for qualified immunity. Findings suggest that nearly half of the respondents support qualified immunity. However, the support for the ability to sue police officers is largely contingent on the situation. Experimental vignettes find support for the ability to sue officers, particularly in situations resulting in a civilian death. Implications for qualified immunity are discussed.
The evolving landscape of technology, particularly through artificial intelligence (AI), video games, and the metaverse, presents significant potential for enhancing simulation training within law enforcement. While simulation is extensively applied in education and healthcare, its use in policing remains relatively underdeveloped. The incorporation of AI tools could enhance scenario creation, improve the realism of virtual characters, and provide automated feedback, thereby enriching the training experience. Given the problem-solving and adaptability skills emphasized in video games, their potential as a training medium for law enforcement warrants further exploration. Therefore, what benefits can be anticipated in education by employing a technology-based approach, utilizing simulation and AI to train policing staff on navigating specific working contexts? This paper conducts a critical interpretive analysis of the integration of emerging technologies in policing education, using comparative case studies from related fields to assess their application in law enforcement training. It evaluates the literature on AI-enhanced simulation training in law enforcement by referencing peer-reviewed studies and field research, focusing on technical feasibility, ethical implications, and pedagogical effectiveness. Although simulations have demonstrated utility in various sectors, their application in law enforcement necessitates a thorough consideration of challenges such as data governance, bias, and privacy concerns, as well as the need for high-quality training data coupled with appropriate technological support. As law enforcement faces increasingly complex challenges requiring sophisticated decision-making under stress, traditional training approaches alone may be insufficient. The potential for AI-enhanced simulations to create safe, repeatable, and highly realistic training scenarios presents a promising avenue for enhancing officer preparedness and improving community outcomes.
Internationally, policing is perhaps the only vocation projecting professionalism, but within which higher education is widely regarded as unnecessary. This paper makes a case that it could instead emulate similar professions, specifically within healthcare, in requiring recruits to receive their education prior to application. This may then help alleviate some negative policing cultures through exposure to diverse viewpoints and gaining 'life experience' within higher education settings. It demonstrates how this in turn can lead to better policing by a plethora of quantitative metrics. Utilizing the authors' personal knowledge across such disciplines, and comparisons with how the British healthcare system recruits across a full spectrum of roles, it suggests these as a basis for police recruitment in the UK and wider. It concludes that the current post-join approach is outdated and contributes to adverse policing cultures and indoctrination of new recruits. A pre-join entry approach would instead bring multiple, measurable benefits.
Hostage and crisis negotiators operate in high-stakes, emotionally intense incidents requiring sustained empathic engagement with individuals who may be suicidal, violent, or otherwise in acute crisis. Although negotiation research has largely focused on communication models and operational outcomes, there is limited empirical evidence regarding negotiators' psychological symptoms over time and the resilience and hazard factors associated with this specialist role. This study analyses seven years of national psychological surveillance data from UK hostage and crisis negotiators to address this gap. Data were drawn from 4,570 completed screenings across forty-seven UK police forces between 2015 and 2021 (1,473 initial and 3,097 ongoing screenings; similar to 80 per cent response rate). Validated measures assessed anxiety, depression, traumatic stress, secondary trauma, and resilience-related variables, including sense of coherence and coping/lifestyle factors. Initial and ongoing screening scores were compared using independent-samples t-tests with effect sizes (Cohen's d). Forward stepwise regression was used exploratorily to identify the most parsimonious variables associated with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and secondary trauma. Qualitative free-text comments were analysed using template thematic analysis. Negotiators reported very low mental health stigma and comparatively lower symptom rates than other high-risk policing groups. Anxiety and PTSD scores were significantly lower at ongoing screening (small to small-moderate effects), while depression and secondary trauma remained low and stable. Regression modelling identified manageability, physical wellbeing, positive work attitudes, social support, and sense of purpose as protective factors, with job stress, sleep loss, illness, and relationship difficulties associated with higher symptoms. Qualitative themes highlighted high role meaning and job satisfaction alongside workload, organizational pressures, and variable managerial recognition. Findings suggest that role purpose combined with proactive organizational psychological surveillance may contribute to resilience in this trauma-exposed policing specialism.
Risk assessment tools are increasingly used in policing to enhance decision-making accuracy and objectivity; yet their implementation has raised significant ethical concerns regarding issues of bias, transparency, and governance. This paper examines the ethical complexities of risk assessment tools through an analysis of four instruments: the harm assessment risk tool, previously developed and used by Durham Constabulary; the Active Risk Management System (ARMS), used across all police forces in England and Wales; the Offender Assessment System, used to profile risk of reoffending by probation services in the UK; and the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, a widely researched tool deployed in US corrections contexts whose ethical challenges are directly relevant to tools now entering policing practice. A thematic framework identifies 10 key challenges for the field, including disparities in accuracy metrics, fairness trade-offs, bias linked to demographics and social identity, and retraining. The paper contextualizes these issues within influential roles, including tool developers, decision-makers, and oversight committees. The credible risk of ethical harms arising from the use of risk assessment tools underscores the need for rigorous validation, transparency, and adaptive governance to minimize these risks. This paper arises from a meeting of an interdisciplinary working group convened at Ethox, University of Oxford, comprising academics in philosophy, law, psychology, psychiatry, and criminology, as well as police stakeholders.
Although the number of female police officers in the United States has increased gradually over the past few decades, women still comprise less than 14 per cent of sworn police officers. Traditional recruitment strategies, particularly marketing materials, have been largely ineffective in attracting women, yet little research has examined how recruitment messaging might better align with how women experience policing. Drawing on signaling theory, this study uses semi-structured interviews with 24 female officers across two US police departments to examine how women's motivations, recruitment pathways, and self-identified strengths can inform recruitment practices. By centering the voices of female officers and applying signaling theory, this study identifies how recruitment messaging can better align with women's lived experiences and offers actionable strategies to improve recruitment efforts.
This study aims to explore whether and how public perceptions and attributions of police-involved crisis events influence trust in the police, and how such trust can be repaired. Utilizing a case-based survey conducted in the aftermath of the 'Lei Yang case', a police misconduct case, factor analysis was employed to identify public perception and attribution patterns, while multiple linear regression was applied to measure their influence. The results indicate that awareness of a single crisis event does not necessarily damage police trust; instead, the type of public attribution is critical. Specifically, internal attribution significantly undermines police trust, whereas external attribution does not. Both socioeconomic status and media usage patterns were found to influence public attribution tendencies. Overall, this study underscores the impact of public attributions on police trust and offers practical, attribution-based solutions for repairing trust and fostering positive police-public interactions.
Sexual harassment remains pervasive within the police. In this article, we ask how formal and informal disciplinary practices, such as hierarchical structure and rumor mill culture, interact to shape police trainees' and officers' perceived ability to respond to sexually harassing behavior? We draw on qualitative data from a training program based on in-group forum initiative and the Forum Power Play method, designed to empower police trainees and officers to improve their work environment and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Analysis of data from 136 police trainees and 20 police officers in Iceland shows that formal and informal disciplinary practices interact to create a culture of impossibility: a context in which hierarchical structure, perceived organizational inaction, and the rumor mill operate as reinforcing barriers to confront sexual harassment. We argue that fostering cultural change and breaking the culture of impossibility requires police management to address perceptions of organizational inaction.
Gender equity in policing remains a critical issue. The current scoping study is a case study analysis of England and Wales police forces. It focuses on recruitment as a measure of the extent and quality of women's involvement in policing. The study involved analyses of workforce composition data from 2015 to 2024. These data were supplemented by further review of publicly available recruitment and agency materials. The findings indicated there was a significant difference in female representation among sworn officers between forces, and a significant correlation between female recruitment and female representation among sworn officers. However, there were no consistent differences evident in the approaches to increasing female recruitment between forces included in this study. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of gender equity in policing and provide a foundation for future research into the link between recruitment efforts and female representation in policing to inform effective gender equity strategies.
This study developed and validated a theory-driven instrument to evaluate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training outcomes among police first responders, who often arrive at out-of-hospital cardiac arrest scenes before emergency medical services. Guided by the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behavior (COM-B) model, the instrument integrates these domains into a higher-order construct, CPR Behavior Change Potential (CBCP). A cross-sectional study was conducted with frontline police officers from three precincts in New Taipei City, Taiwan. A pilot phase (n = 117) was used for item refinement, followed by formal validation with 207 participants who completed 15 attitudinal items and 10 CPR knowledge items. Objective CPR performance indicators, including compression depth and rate, were measured using a quality CPR (QCPR) feedback-enabled simulator. Psychometric evaluation included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory. The results demonstrated strong reliability (alpha = 0.88-0.94; KR-20 = 0.95) and acceptable model fit, with the three first-order domains converging into CBCP (target coefficient = 0.774). Skill self-efficacy showed a moderate association with compression depth (r = 0.31, P < 0.01), supporting criterion validity. This validated instrument provides a practical, evidence-informed tool for assessing CPR training readiness among police officers and supports targeted retraining strategies and organizational decision-making aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 3.
This study examines the associations among trust in government, privacy concerns, procedural justice, and individuals' willingness to share personal information for crime prevention purposes. Using survey data from the 2015 National Perception Survey on the Use of Big Data for Crime Prevention (N = 1,000), the analysis tests a mediation-moderation model grounded in theories of institutional trust and privacy. The findings indicate that trust in government is statistically associated with willingness to provide personal information, whereas privacy concerns are negatively associated with such willingness. Privacy concerns are also associated with the relationship between trust and information provision. In addition, perceived procedural justice is associated with variation in the strength of this relationship. These results highlight the importance of institutional trust and fair data-handling procedures in shaping voluntary cooperation in public-sector data governance.
Police officers experience elevated rates of psychological ill-health relative to the general population (Syed et al. 2020). While operational trauma is an established risk, qualitative research on organizational stress, institutional support, and help-seeking remains limited. This qualitative study contributes to a growing body of research which identifies organizational stressors as possibly more corrosive than operational trauma (Newell et al. 2022). Drawing on 60 interviews with officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, this study examines how organizational stress, institutional support, help-seeking behaviours, and moral injury intersect. Five organizationally rooted themes emerged-fear of repercussions, stigma, performative wellbeing initiatives, inaccessibility, and a culture of mistrust-all of which acted as barriers to help-seeking and were described as more harmful than operational trauma. The article concludes by outlining context-specific reforms, including confidential, one-to-one follow-ups after traumatic events, annual psychological check-ins, clearer separation between wellbeing provision and operational risk management, and leadership accountability for fostering psychological safety.
