News & Events

Crime and policing in London - next steps for crime prevention, addressing key crime trends and improving police performance

Morning, Thursday, 19^th October 2017

Central London

THIS EVENT IS CPD CERTIFIED

This seminar will focus on the future of crime and policing in London.

It is scheduled to discuss priorities for the implementation of London’s recently published Police and Crime Plan - due for publication shortly - which sets out the Mayor’s strategic priorities for making London a safer city.

Planned sessions focus on key challenges and opportunities presented by the Mayor’s proposals to establish “real neighbourhood policing”, looking in particular at how the use of locally set priorities might inform future crime prevention strategy, as well as the impact of the proposed delivery of two dedicated Police Constables in every London ward by the end of 2017.

Delegates will also have the opportunity to discuss latest trends and emerging threats in city-wide crime - including fraud, cyber-crime and terrorism - as well as what will be needed from police, local boroughs, communities and criminal justice partners in tackling high-harm crimes that impact on vulnerable groups - such as violence against women and girls, hate crime and knife crime.

As national Government considers options for reforming the police funding formula and the Capital Cities Grant, further sessions will consider what more the Metropolitan Police can do to improve efficiency and effectiveness in policing at a time of budgetary constraint - looking in particular at options for improving public confidence, and key issues around diversity, skills and the future use of technology.

The conference is expected to bring together key policymakers with frontline stakeholders from across policing, prisons, probation and court services as well as private security companies and service providers, local authorities, community groups, businesses, consultants and commentators.

Book your place at: http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/conference/crime-and-policing-London-2017

Congratulations to COPR member Divya Sukumar who won the Warwick Three Minute Thesis® competition during the live final last night (7 June)!

Divya's presentation got the highest score from a panel of specially appointed judges drawn from senior University staff and an external guest judge. She also won the People’s Choice Award from the audience. She now gets the chance to enter the national 3MT competition.

Congratulations to Melissa Colloff and Divya Sukumar for winning the 2016 Psychology Student Publication Awards! The awards worth of £100 were announced and presented on Friday 19 May, during the closing session of the Psychology Postgraduate Research Day. Melissa is supervised by Kim Wade and Divya is jointly supervised by Kim Wade and Jackie Hodgson.

This is what the judging panel said about the award-winning publications:

Colloff, M. F., Wade, K. A., & Strange, D. (2016). Unfair lineups make witnesses more likely to confuse innocent and guilty suspects. Psychological Science, 27(9), 1227-1239.

"The study used a sophisticated and careful experimental design to examine an important real life issue from a theoretical perspective. An impressively large sample size gives more strength to the study's results which potentially will have important practical implications for improving the lineup construction practices in the police force."

Sukumar, D., Hodgson, J. S., & Wade, K. A. (2016). Behind closed doors: Live observations of current police station disclosure practices and lawyer-client consultations. Criminal Law Review, 12, 900-914.

The Open Society Initiative for Europe has published a call for proposals on Improving Police/Public Relations and Police Diversity.

The call for proposals is now closed.

We are hosting the National Custody Forum in May and look forward to welcoming police officers and staff to campus!

COPR member, Dr Kimberely Wade, has co-authored a new paper published in Memory!

Centre for Operational Police Research member, Sharda Ramdewor, is conducting research on the impact of body worn video (BWV) on stop and search in England and Wales.

Sharda's research is now included on the 'What Works?' College of Policing research map.

2 November 2016

A cross-faculty network event for Warwick academics involved in policing research took place on Wednesday 2^nd November, chaired by Professor Jackie Hodgson. It brought together researchers from Psychology, Law, PAIS, Economics, WMG, Applied Linguistics and Modern Languages & Cultures. The aim of the event was to enable researchers to share contacts and identify opportunities for future collaboration, as well as facilitating discussion on the challenges and opportunities of policing research.

The event was great success. Thanks again to all of those who took part!

West Mercia Police and Warwickshire Police have engaged the Centre for Operational Police Research to undertake a large-scale collaborative research project: "We don't buy crime". The research—conducted by Dr Kim Wade, Prof Jackie Hodgson, Prof Neil Stewart and Dr Kevin Hearty—is now included on the 'What Works?' College of Policing research map.

Divya Sukumar, Prof Jackie Hodgson & Dr Kim Wade's forthcoming publication on live observations of police station disclosure practices and lawyer-client consultations in the Criminal Law Review is now available to read online here.

Drawing on recent observational fieldwork as well as existing research studies in the fields of law and of psychology, this article examines the nature of police practices in the disclosure of evidence before and during custodial interviews of legally represented suspects. Whilst police pre-interview disclosure to lawyers was a fixed practice, the format of disclosure varied and lawyers were rarely permitted to inspect the evidence, relying instead on the officer’s account. Disclosure was sometimes provided in stages, either as a deliberate tactic or when evidence was lacking. Officers occasionally exaggerated the strength of their case to suspects and resisted providing more detail to lawyers – an approach that seemed designed to elicit an admission from the suspect. In line with past research, lawyers relied on the evidence that police disclosed when advising clients before the interview and occasionally argued with the police for more disclosure. Taken together, these findings suggest that police are complying with the minimum disclosure requirements set out by legislation, and that police may be more open with lawyers than previous research suggests. Some of our findings warrant concern, however, and raise questions about risks to vulnerable suspects in custody and risks to suspects without legal representation.