By His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services - HMICFRS 

In September 2023, the then Home Secretary commissioned us to inspect police involvement in politically contested matters. We examined several things: the police’s policies, processes and decision-making; how officers are trained; the police’s work with external advisory groups; how police deal with non-crime hate incidents; the police’s communication with the public; and whether there are any systemic problems that interfere with police impartiality. We reviewed over 4,000 documents and held interviews and focus groups with over 400 officers, staff and members of other organisations. We examined the records of 120 non-crime hate incidents. We surveyed the police and the public, for which we received over 4,000 responses. And we analysed over 857,000 police social media posts. This has been one of the most challenging inspections we have carried out. It deals with complex legislation and regulations. It deals with policing’s sometimes invidious role in keeping the peace, meeting the needs of individuals or groups who have opposing views and simultaneously upholding everyone’s rights. And it involves contentious, emotive issues. We found three systemic problems. First, there is a near-total absence of any definition, guidance or judicial consideration of impartiality insofar as it relates to policing. Second, legal application of the Equality Act 2010 is now too complicated. Third, the legislation doesn’t clearly define the boundary between police operational independence and appropriate external influence or accountability. Most chief officers told us that they experience what they believe to be improper pressure or interference from significant political figures. Chief constables and police and crime commissioners don’t always understand the delineation of their roles and responsibilities. Chief constables need more guidance to help them maintain operational independence. To improve public trust and confidence, it is important for the police to communicate effectively with communities. We found forces sometimes overestimate the effectiveness of their communications using social media and rely too much on this communication channel. And there is a lack of guidance to help forces communicate on contentious issues, including by using visible representations such as badges and lanyards, which officers often wear on their police uniform. Many interviewees told us they felt demoralised and let down by forces often not doing enough to respond to inaccurate or unfair media coverage when they are the subject of critical reporting and social media comment. Some described political commentary as being overwhelmingly negative and therefore at risk of distorting public opinion. Many officers and staff were disappointed by the absence of commentary on the good work they do every day. Since 1999, responding to a recommendation in the report of the inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, forces have brought people together into external advisory groups. These groups help inform police decision-making. There is no up-to-date guidance about how advisory groups should work or how they should be formed. And forces use and run these groups in different ways. The Stephen Lawrence report also recommended police forces record non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs). All forces recognise the important value of this information. But forces haven’t consistently applied the guidance concerning how they should deal with NCHIs. They record and attend more of these incidents than they need to. Police staff networks have existed since the founding of the Christian Police Association in 1883. And staff networks have played an important role in policing’s response to concerns about racism, homophobia and misogyny. There is a perception among police officers and staff that some networks are a higher priority in their force than others. Networks can help forces navigate challenging problems. But when networks become involved in politicised or contentious issues, it can have a negative effect on public trust and confidence. Having reviewed the evidence, we believe that the lack of clarity within the complex legal and regulatory framework that informs the police approach to politicised or contentious issues is damaging public trust and confidence. In this report, we make 22 recommendations. Our recommendations are designed to provide the clarity needed for police forces to be, and appear to be, impartial by: • clarifying the impartiality duty and operational independence, and updating associated training and guidance; • reviewing and updating the Equality Act 2010 and associated training and guidance; • introducing guidance about police attendance and conduct at events; • improving communication with the public about politicised and contested issues, including using social media and visible representations; • updating guidance relating to the use of external advisory groups; • updating policies and reviewing the governance arrangements for non-crime hate incidents; and • strengthening the governance arrangements for police staff networks. We were due to publish our report in July 2024, but the announcement of a general election caused us to delay reporting our findings. 2 Summary 

Birmingham UK: HMICFRS 2024 2024. 132p.

By: Sameer Hinduja and Brandon Kooi

Information can be considered as an invaluable commodity for all business entities, and has brought about the development of various security architectures devoted to its protection. Corporations have tended to react to the exploitation of information security (InfoSec) vulnerabilities through the implementation of technological measures. Indeed, most security policies and procedures are highly technologically inclined, making use of hardware and software to protect and safeguard the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. Unfortunately, these tactics have achieved limited success because of inattention to the opportunistic aspects of crime commission. Situational crime prevention can address the importance of these aspects by concentrating on the circumstances associated with a crime, and how the setting, conditions and context can be modified to preclude its manifestation. Its specific application to cyber and InfoSec in a corporate setting is advantageous in developing competent proactive strategies to reduce the presence and attractiveness of criminal possibilities for would-be offenders.

Security Journal advance online publication, 17 June 2013; doi:10.1057/sj.2013.25

By: Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and John E. Eck

The epidemic of obesity in American cities has alarmed public health professionals. Attention has been cast on the importance of leading an active life for good health, so questions have been raised about barriers to active living. One potential barrier is the concern many people have about crime. Is crime a barrier to active living, and if it is, what can be done about it? This paper draws from two fields— environmental criminology and urban planning—to provide evidence of how crime may reduce active living and what can be done to make the physical environment safer.

Environmental criminologists and urban planners start from complementary but different perspectives. Environmental criminologists focus on the development and prevention of crime patterns, particularly the interactions of offenders, potential victims, and others. Their interventions focus on the immediate environments of crime concentrations and manipulate these environments to alter offenders’ perceptions of their prospects of success. Planners and urban designers are interested in the legitimate users of the city, who also may become crime victims. They examine how different social groups perceive the public spaces of everyday life, and how these spaces can be modified to encourage desirable activities.

This paper applies both perspectives to explore the relationships among crime, fear of crime, and active living. We begin by describing these relationships to establish a broad research framework. We then look at the factors that influence fear of crime and how they vary among groups and settings. Next we examine the literature on the relationship between physical characteristics of settings, opportunities to commit crimes, and fear of crime. Crime and fear are not evenly distributed, even over similar places, so this is discussed in the fourth section. In the fifth part we examine criminal justice, the central role of police, and the theoretical perspectives offered by environmental criminology and situational crime prevention. We then turn to the effectiveness of situational crime prevention. We conclude by outlining a research agenda for increasing active living through reducing crime and fear of crime.

Health Promotion hepr-21-00-05.3d 10/1/07 19:08:27 380 Cust # 06050358R1

KOVALCIKOVA, NAD'A; FILIPOVA, RUMENA VALENTINOVA, 1989-; HOGEVEEN, BART; KARÁSKOVÁ, IVANA; PAWLAK, PATRYK; SALVI, ANDREA

From the document: "This 'Chaillot Paper' delves into the phenomenon of foreign interference and the risk it poses to democratic societies. It explores the interplay between information manipulation and disruptive cyber operations, revealing their role as complementary components within a broader strategy. Dedicated chapters examine how interference manifests across various sectors, including social, political, economic, digital and security domains, describing existing tools and evolving policy responses. Each case study follows a clear structure, presenting an incident, its effects and the implemented responses. The volume concludes by identifying convergences and divergences across the cases studied, and highlights foreign interference as a critical and growing threat to global security. It offers targeted recommendations on how the EU can significantly bolster its defences and resilience against this threat."

INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES (PARIS, FRANCE). AUG, 2024. 67p.

DREXEL, BILL; WITHERS, CALEB

From the document: "In 2020, COVID-19 brought the world to its knees, with nearly 29 million estimated deaths, acute social and political disruptions, and vast economic fallout. However, the event's impact could have been far worse if the virus had been more lethal, more transmissible, or both. For decades, experts have warned that humanity is entering an era of potential catastrophic pandemics that would make COVID-19 appear mild in comparison. History is well acquainted with such instances, not least the 1918 Spanish Flu, the Black Death, and the Plague of Justinian--each of which would have dwarfed COVID-19's deaths if scaled to today's populations. Equally concerning, many experts have sounded alarms of possible deliberate bioattacks in the years ahead. [...] This report aims to clearly assess AI's impact on the risks of biocatastrophe. It first considers the history and existing risk landscape in American biosecurity independent of AI disruptions. Drawing on a sister report, 'Catalyzing Crisis: A Primer on Artificial Intelligence, Catastrophes, and National Security,' this study then considers how AI is impacting biorisks across four dimensions of AI safety: new capabilities, technical challenges, integration into complex systems, and conditions of AI development. Building on this analysis, the report identifies areas of future capability development that may substantially alter the risks of large-scale biological catastrophes worthy of monitoring as the technology continues to evolve. Finally, the report recommends actionable steps for policymakers to address current and near-term risks of biocatastrophes."

CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY. 2024.

A GOSWAMI, ARCHISHMAN

From the document: "This paper examines the role that national intelligence agencies may play in helping to secure critical technology supply chains. As the race for scientific advantage becomes increasingly characteristic of national security concerns amid growing multipolarity and interstate competition, national intelligence agencies are paying greater attention to the security of critical and emerging technologies. This paper analyses how intelligence agencies may work and adapt in relation to the specific challenges posed by this issue. The analysis is divided into sections on intelligence (examining the broadening of intelligence-gathering horizons and the likelihood of ally-on-ally espionage); counterintelligence (focused on insider threats from within the private sector); and covert action (assessing the potential for paramilitary action and offensive cyber to achieve kinetic effect vis-à-vis a competitor's supply chains)."

OBSERVER RESEARCH FOUNDATION., 2024. 23p.

By Marly van Bruchem, Laura Hendriks, Hans Myhre Sunde, Don Weenink, Lasse Suonperä Liebst & Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard

The causes of riots have been extensively researched. Comparatively, little is known about how they are prevented from occurring. We address this gap with a qualitative study of the role of formal and informal guardians in Amsterdam in January 2021, when public disorder was widespread across the Netherlands after the government had announced a curfew to curb the spread of the Covid−19 virus. We used CCTV footage of two gatherings that had elements of disorder and two that occurred without them. We also rely on interviews with 40 so-called “intimate handlers” who were present during these gatherings to understand how they managed them. We find that the presence and actions of intimate handlers collaborating with the police during the gatherings, effectuated through frequent affiliative contacts with the crowd, had direct de-escalatory effects, operative because of their well-developed social community bonds: participants in gatherings avoided jeopardizing these bonds of attachment, which also created a more positive image of the police through citizen-police collaborations. Our findings thus stress the importance of social bonds for the effectiveness of riot prevention and we consider practical implications for public disorder and large-scale crowd management.

Deviant Behavior, Volume 44, 2023 - Issue 11

By Aaron Chalfin, Jacob Kaplan, Michael LaForest

 For more than one hundred years, street lighting has been one of the most enduring capital investments to maintain public safety. In this study, we provide a comprehensive examination of the effect of street lights on crime, by estimating the effect of nearly 300,000 street light outages in Chicago neighborhoods on crime. We find that outdoor nighttime crimes change very little on-street segments affected by street light outages, but that crime appears to spill over to nearby street segments during these outages. These findings suggest that crime may follow patterns of human activity and that the impact of localized street light outages can reverberate throughout a community. 

Working Paper,  2021.  56p. Final version is at: Journal of Quantitative Criminology 38(1):1-29

By Shelley Trevethan and Eva Maxwell

This report reviewed and synthesized literature in response to two guiding research questions: how have Indigenous cultural practices, traditions, and activities been included in crime prevention programming and what is their connection with crime prevention; how have culturally-relevant crime prevention programs been evaluated and what is their contribution to crime prevention outcomes? This literature review includes a review of risk/protective factors for crime among Indigenous persons; a summary of the literature on crime prevention programs for Indigenous Peoples; an analysis of the connection between cultural practices, traditions, and activities and crime prevention objectives; a review of program evaluations; a summary and analysis of evaluation approaches and methodologies; a review of the effectiveness of Indigenous cultural practices, traditions, and activities based on existing evaluation results; and, conclusions and recommendations. Articles reviewed for this review were published in English, dated from 1983 to 2021, and represented 22 countries. Countries of publication included Canada, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Africa. Overall, the literature in this field (a total of 291 articles and publications) is relatively new and challenging to find, particularly so for literature on the evaluation of programs. Indeed, the majority of articles reviewed were from gray literature sources, indicating that the field has not been extensively researched in academia; thus, causality is difficult to establish. Key themes included over-representation of Indigenous Peoples in all stages of the criminal justice system (and the reasons); risk and protective factors; nature of existing programming; and approaches for culturally competent evaluation

Research Report: 2023-R009   Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2023. 301p.

By Hannah Cortés-Kaplan and Laura Dunbar

This research study sought to examine the unique implementation issues for crime prevention programs aiming to serve Indigenous populations. This was completed through the analysis of implementation data from 49 crime prevention projects with completed evaluations, funded under the National Crime Prevention Strategy. The purpose was to examine the information that currently exists related to the implementation process, to provide an in-depth understanding of the associated challenges and strategies, and to identify possible recommendations for moving forward. An exploratory research design was employed, whereby data obtained from evaluation reports and related documents, were analyzed using Microsoft® Excel and QSR International NVivo 10. Results demonstrated that projects experienced implementation challenges in the following areas: program accessibility; funding requirements; management and administrative issues; and time management and planning deficiencies. Although few strategies were identified overall, adding a cultural element or making cultural adaptations were acknowledged as important components in addressing challenges. Findings from this research study identified the importance of program readiness and planning, resource limitations, culturally relevant adaptations, and formative evaluation in the implementation process. Knowledge of the latter may in turn help to assist crime prevention practitioners and policy makers in their understanding of implementation issues and strategies for improving projects aimed at serving Indigenous populations moving forward. 

Research Report: 2021–R001  Ottawa: Public Safety Canada. 2021. 33p.