And yet despite this growing consensus on the need for a preventative approach, public services remain overwhelmingly oriented towards meeting acute need. For example, we spend just £5 billion a year on public health services aimed at preventing illness compared to a total National Health Service (NHS) budget of £160 billion, most of which is spent on treating people once they are sick.

In relation to public safety calls for a greater push on prevention have grown louder in recent years as the police have been faced with a growing number of so-called ‘wicked issues’, such as mental health crises, to which police officers can only ever provide a provisional solution (such as an arrest, a calming influence or a referral to another agency). Faced with this growth in complex demand, police leaders have regularly stated that “we cannot arrest our way” out of these problems. Rather these ‘wicked issues’ are thought to require early action and extensive collaboration between public agencies.

Moreover, there is strong evidence for the effectiveness of a preventative approach to crime. Between 1995 and 2019 the number of burglaries in England and Wales fell by 74 per cent. All of the academic evidence shows that the cause of this drop was improved home security, such as better locks on doors and windows. There is a similar story with the fall in car crime. Vehicle related theft in England and Wales fell by 79.5 per cent between 1995 and 2019. The cause of this decline in vehicle theft was not tougher sentences or new policing tactics, but rather the introduction of improved security measures by the car manufacturers, including immobilisers, intruder alarms, central locking, better keys and tougher doors, windows and boots.

We now face an explosion in internet related crime and harm, from fraud to online child sexual abuse. It is difficult to catch those committing these offences, given that many of them operate from overseas. The best approach to tackling these forms of crime is not by putting more bobbies on the beat but by getting serious about designing these forms of crime out at source, just as we did with car crime and burglary.

The reason we lack a systemic approach to crime and harm prevention is that no one owns the prevention task. We have a policing system and a criminal justice system, but we lack an explicit and institutionally anchored crime and harm prevention system, with clear lines of accountability, defined roles and responsibilities, budgets, priorities and supportive infrastructures.

In a paper published today as a contribution to the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales I set out what such a crime and harm prevention system should look like. It would have four main features. First, we need a cross-departmental strategy for crime and harm prevention that mobilises work across the whole of government. There is currently a Modern Crime Prevention Strategy, owned by the Home Office, but it is largely aspirational and as one senior police leader told the author ‘it isn’t a strategy’ because it contains no delivery plan. Instead, a strategy is required that focuses the government’s work on priority areas, sets outcomes, articulates how those outcomes will be achieved and by whom. I argue that this should be led by the Cabinet Office under the direct authority of the Prime Minister.

Second, the evidence from other sectors shows that it is important to have a flagship agency that owns the problem of prevention and is responsible for coordinating crime and harm prevention activity to ensure that strategic aims are delivered. We have a Health and Safety Executive responsible for coordinating action across industry and government to prevent accidents at work. Similarly, we ought to have a dedicated agency that would focus on crime prevention and would galvanise the necessary activity across government and wider society. In particular a national agency would be responsible for working closely with the international actors, such as the big tech companies, whose role in preventing online crime is critical.

Third, a general ‘duty to prevent crime’ should be introduced across the private sector. This would reflect the ‘polluter pays’ principle: those whose products and services are currently creating opportunities for crime would be asked to invest upfront in designing crime out at source. This could work in a similar way to the existing duty on commercial organisations to prevent bribery.

Finally, we need to repurpose the existing rather cluttered local landscape of prevention-oriented bodies and partnerships. In particular, the role of the new Violence Reduction Units should be extended to cover all local crime and all parts of the country. They should work alongside revitalised Community Safety Partnerships at town and borough level who should be given new resources and a clearer focus.

There will be resistance to some of the measures that will need to be taken to prevent crime and wider harm. There may be new checks and processes in consumer transactions. Industry will have to think more carefully about the criminogenic potential of new products. Some internet freedoms could be curtailed. All of these matters should rightly be the subject of public debate, in which the gains in terms of safety must be weighed against any losses in terms of, for example, customer convenience or internet freedom.

Whatever decisions are made about particular measures, the most important message from this paper is that we need to get serious about crime and harm prevention. And getting serious means the establishment of a proper crime and harm prevention system, anchored in actors and institutions who own the task and are focused on the job.

Dr Rick Muir, Director, The Police Foundation

This is a rise from 0.86% to 1.83% of the total police officer population in England, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively. It appears not to have gone unnoticed by the Home Office. In May 2020, they announced that the ‘retention of experienced police officers has emerged as a concern’ and were considering plans to incentivise retention. However, without knowing why officers leave, the benefits of these efforts may prove limited.

Findings from a small-scale online survey of officers who had resigned voluntarily from one medium sized police force in England between November 2014 and June 2019 (n=46) provide some initial data from a project which will shortly also incorporate interview data with a sample of these respondents (n=27). What we know from existing research is that organisational commitment is likely to be enhanced by strong leadership, social exchange factors and the perceived attractiveness of the organisation. The data from this survey of police leavers suggests a perception of the absence of at least two of these three contributory factors to organisational commitment.

First, poor leadership and management was cited as the most regular theme in answer to why officers left the police service. This was directed at all levels of supervision and importantly support, whether immediate line management, middle management or senior management within the organisation. Perceptions of management are not aided by the inescapably powerful policing occupational cultures, characterised amongst other things, by cynicism and an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ categorisation. Cultural influences aside however, perceptions of poor leadership and management within the police remain as the most cited reason amongst officers resigning voluntarily from the service.

Second, organisational commitment can be enhanced through social exchange factors which are triggered through perceptions of feeling supported and valued. Our data showed that police officers who had left the organisation felt an overriding sense of organisational ‘injustice’, to such an extent that that the delicate balance between employer and employee had been breached. It was also this sense of ‘injustice’ which proved to be the ‘final straw’ for those leaving the police service, with almost half of respondents referring to features relating to injustice such as a lack of autonomy and a lack of ‘voice’ being the ‘decisive moment’ which led to their resignation. There were also perceptions of a lack of access to promotion and progression opportunities and an unsustainable workload which precluded the ability to maintain a reasonable work/life balance. This was stated to have impacted negatively upon their levels of stress, physical and mental health, caring responsibilities and personal relationships outside of their working environment. This would all therefore suggest an imbalance of the crucial social exchange factors which are so necessary in cementing a bond between employer and employee.

Third, the perceived attractiveness of the organisation has the potential to enhance organisational commitment and it is here where our research data suggests a more positive picture. Police officers demonstrated a strong sense of commitment to immediate colleagues and an enjoyment of the job itself, both aspects which they missed after resigning. Indeed, these work factors which derive the highest levels of satisfaction are broadly similar to the reasons expressed for joining the police service in the first place such as working with the public, working in a team and the work variety.

In conclusion, our data suggests that internal organisational issues are far more relevant to intention to leave decisions than occupational factors. While there are also relevant external factors, particularly in relation to ‘excessive’ workloads, which do clearly impact on levels of dissatisfaction, the focus for change would appear to be in a consideration of how the social exchange factors, which are so crucial to an enhanced sense of organisational commitment can be rebalanced equitably to take account of both the individual needs of staff in addition to organisational demand.

You can read more about the research findings in this article published by Policing and Society.

Dr Sarah Charman and Dr Stephanie Bennett, Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth

As part of this are some of the most radical initiatives to increase workforce diversity in recent times. Thus, the MPS is aiming to have Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) officer representation at 16 per cent by 2022, 21 per cent by 2024 and 28 per cent by 2030.

To achieve this, the MPS want 40 per cent of new recruits to be from BAME communities from 2022/23 and the London residency criteria has been re-introduced. Specific targets will be set for the recruitment and retention of black officers.

As of December 2020, 7.5 per cent of police officers in England and Wales are BAME (1.2 per cent black, 3.2 per cent Asian, 2.2 per cent mixed ethnicity and 0.8 per cent other ethnicity), despite the current BAME population being projected at 17.2 per cent. The 2.8 per cent increase in the last decade has mainly been driven by the recruitment of Asian and mixed ethnicity officers.

Black officer representation has increased by a mere 0.3 per cent in the last 10 years; 28 forces have seen no increase in the proportion of black officers in this time, 23 of which saw decreases. Over a quarter of forces do not have a single black officer with almost 40 per cent having one or fewer.

BAME populations are outpacing the rate of change in BAME police officer proportions. If the average annual rate of change between 2015 and 2020 continues, it will take over 90 years for the police service of England and Wales to be representative of the BAME population of 2050.

This is a hugely simplified picture. There is further concern with regard to intersectionality; the proportion of female white officers has increased by 5.9 per cent over the last decade. In comparison the proportion of female BAME officers has increased by just 1.3 per cent.

Additionally, diversity generally decreases with rank. Of the two per cent of Chief Officers that are BAME, just two are female. Home Office data indicate that there are no BAME female Chief Superintendents, although the author is aware that this data may contain inaccuracies

It is of course necessary to assess workforce diversity at the local force level considering the huge regional variation in population diversity. However, no forces are currently representative of their communities in terms of ethnicity.

For ‘policing by consent’ to be effective, all members of the community must feel that the police are there to serve them and that the police will treat them fairly and with respect. Black (in particular black Caribbean) and mixed ethnicity communities have much lower levels of confidence in the police than white British people do. Having a police service that is more representative of the communities it serves is one important way of addressing this lack of trust and confidence.

There are significant barriers facing BAME police recruits and each of these need to be addressed.

Before even applying to join there are of course pre-existing perceptions of the police that can put many people off from considering a career as a police officer. Alongside this is the very real potential for backlash from one’s family, friends and community, a fear of an unwelcoming culture within the police and a lack of black police role models in influential positions to aspire to.

Even passing the initial assessment to join the police is more difficult if you are from an ethnic minority. Recent figures from the Day One Assessment Centre trial show the pass rate for BAME candidates was 48 per cent compared to 81 per cent for white British candidates (74 per cent including white minorities).

Data from Police Now show that if a BAME candidate does receive a job offer following the Police Now assessment centre trial they are twice as likely than white counterparts to have an offer rescinded by a force. BAME candidates are six times more likely to fail vetting, four times more likely to fail a fitness assessment, 21 times more likely to have an offer rescinded for ‘other issues’ and one percentage point more likely to fail a medical assessment.

If a BAME candidate is successful in the recruitment process, further barriers stand in the way of smooth career progression; retaining BAME officers is equally as vital as recruiting them.

BAME police officers are less likely to be promoted than white officers. Last year just 4.9 per cent of police officers promoted were BAME. BAME officers are also disproportionately subject to internal conduct allegations.

It is unsurprising then that BAME officers are 50 per cent more likely to voluntarily resign than their white counterparts (29 per 1,000 officers, compared to 18 per 1,000) and more than twice as likely to be dismissed or have their contract terminated.  

So BAME police officers face considerable challenges. Making progress can require great patience, resilience and tenacity. But many more police officers from ethnic minority backgrounds are urgently needed.

Positive action initiatives are sporadic across England and Wales but have gone some way to increasing police officer diversity. But it is not enough.

In 1981, Lord Scarman said ‘vigorous action is required if the police are to become more representative of all the community they serve’. In those 40 years, the proportion of black officers has increased by 0.9 per cent. In 1999, Macpherson echoed Scarman’s concerns and none of his targets for the following decade were met. Since then, the 2016 Home Affairs Select Committee described police officer diversity as ‘shameful’, ‘pitiful’ and that ‘many police forces seem to have no better grasp of how to increase diversity than they did decades ago’.

Radical action is necessary. It is hard to imagine how and when the police will be representative if substantial progress is not made during the current uplift. The MOPAC Action Plan is a step in the right direction for London and we will soon see whether it is sufficient or if we may need to go further and consider positive discrimination, as was used in Northern Ireland to successfully increase the proportion of Catholic officers.

There must also be radical reform of accountability, retention, progression and training. We need racial and cultural literacy throughout the workforce and throughout the service.

Yesterday the Police Foundation’s annual conference, which formed part of the Strategic Review of Policing hosted a panel discussion on workforce diversity with Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor of London, and Leroy Logan MBE, former Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police and author of ‘Closing Ranks, My Life as a Cop’, who had his life in the police depicted in Steve McQueen’s recent BBC series, ‘Small Axe’.  A replay of the event is available and you can purchase access here.

Stephen Walcott, Researcher, The Police Foundation

We should note that there are major differences in context that need to be taken into account in trying to understand the merits or otherwise of the campaign to defund the police. In the US the police have received substantial increases in public investment in recent years, whereas in England and Wales the police budget has been cut by around 20 per cent since 2010.  As many British police officers have pointed out, we have been defunding the police in this country for the last ten years, although instead of diverting those resources into preventative services, as the defund movement has demanded, these cuts have been replicated across the rest of the public sector.

In that context police officers here have responded to the call to defund with a good dose of scepticism and some anger. I understand where that scepticism comes from, but I am not the first person to argue that rather than dismiss these arguments, policing would do well to engage with them.  They may find, as former Chief Superintendent Owen West writes, that “what is proposed is actually quite close to what many UK police officers have been calling for for decades.”

The defund argument has emerged from a context in the US in which very many Black people feel surveilled, harassed and unfairly treated by the police. In that context a demand for fewer police and less policing makes sense to many people as a way of improving rather than reducing their safety.  While the situation is very different here, the experience of disproportionality in police contact and use of police powers in England and Wales means that the defund argument has a resonance here, along with wider calls for greater police accountability and action on the use of stop and search. 

However, there is another element to the  “defund” argument which I want to focus on in this piece and that is the idea that the role and remit of the police has become over extended in recent years and it is time to rethink the scope and purpose of what they do. It is this claim of the defund movement that I think many within policing would strongly agree with.

In the US the over extension of policing was partly a result of increased police budgets as part of a nation-wide “war on crime” through the 1980s and 90s. There were more cops, at precisely the same time as other forms of public provision were cut back. It was also a consequence of the popularity of “broken windows theory” in many US police departments, which led to the police clamping down on all sorts of minor and trivial issues (parking fines, noise complaints, littering etc) as a way of tackling, by extension, more serious crime. The consequence, as Alex Vitale argues in his book The End of Policing, has been a widening of the police remit and a feeling in many communities, particularly for people of colour, that the police are constantly on their backs. 

In the UK the causes and the context are different, but there has also been an expansion in the police role in recent years. Some of that is a result of largely positive legislative change that has, for example, given the police a larger role in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. The police have also taken on public protection responsibilities around the management of offenders in the community. 

However, much of this remit extension is less due to deliberate policy change and more a by-product of austerity since 2010. As a 24/7 emergency service with a role in responding to all kinds of harms the police have found themselves being called out to deal with more issues involving those who are multiply disadvantaged. For example, the number of mental health related incidents reported to the police increased by 28 per cent between 2014 and 2018 and incidents involving missing people rose by 46 per cent between 2013/14 and 2016/17.

There has also been a desire within the police service for police work to become more preventative.  This is a natural response to dealing with countless incidents of social failure every day: the police have wanted to try to get further upstream to see what they can do to prevent these problems in the first place. So, for example, we have seen in one force police officers identifying children and young people who may have suffered from Adverse Childhood Experiences and then working with families and other agencies to develop plans to better support those children and young people in the future. 

There is much to be said for this kind of work (someone should be doing it), but these examples raise the question as to whether the police are best placed to be doing it. Indeed, some go further and argue that the police may end up doing more harm than good, by looking at these issues through a policing lens rather than say from a health or a social work perspective.

It should also be added that at the same time as the police role has extended the variety and complexity of the investigative work the police do has also increased, particularly as a result of many previously under-reported crimes (such as sexual crime and domestic abuse offences) now being reported in larger numbers. 

Can the police, with their limited resources and existing professional competencies, successfully meet all of this demand? The forthcoming report from the first phase of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales (to be published on 29^th July) concludes that the police cannot successfully meet all of the demands we are currently placing upon them. This leads us to the conclusion that we need to think again about the role and purpose of the police, and to do so while also considering the roles and responsibilities of other actors who have an impact on public safety.  Thinking about policing as part of a wider system is also something that has been raised by those who have called for crime, particularly violent crime, to be viewed as a “public health issue”. In the US context as a consequence of the Black Lives Matter movement there has been a call to think about alternative systems of public safety, in which the police play a role alongside others.

My own view is that the time has come for us to be more explicit about what we want the police to do, and where they fit as part of a wider system of communities, actors and institutions. In the next phase of the Strategic Review we will be looking at what that role, and that wider system of public safety, should look like. 

What should characterise the police role?  The police are not just crime fighters, as almost everyone who looks at these issues accepts (most calls to the police are non-crime related). They have a 24/7 general response role that is hard to see any other agency or profession carrying out.  Demand is unpredictable, often peaks at night and at weekends when other agencies are closed and is often ambiguous (it is not clear what the incident is really about until someone attends). This all means that a general response service oriented at preventing harm and providing provisional solutions to all manner of problems is required. Given the fraught nature of some of these incidents it is very hard to imagine anyone other than the police, with the powers that they have, doing this successfully.    

It also seems desirable that the police should think preventatively when they are doing their work.  Indeed, there is a good evidence based behind “problem-oriented policing” which has a strong preventative dimension.  At the same time however we need to attend to the boundary of the police role and that of others and be careful about overreach. The police are mainly and inevitably dealing with issues when things have gone wrong and upstream preventative work is likely to be more properly done elsewhere.

I understand why many within policing see “defund” as a threat. However, putting to one side the size of the police budget, underlying that demand are a set of concerns that both the police and their critics share. How do we most effectively improve public safety? Which actors and institutions should play a role in that? How should those actors and institution relate to one another as part of a system of public safety or indeed as part of a “public health” approach? And what should the police role be in all of this? We won’t be able to address all the many and varied public safety challenges we face unless we start answering these questions and be more explicit about what we expect of the police, of other agencies and even perhaps of each other.

The first report of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, chaired by Sir Michael Barber and hosted by the Police Foundation, will be published on 29^th July 2020.  

What objectives should they seek to achieve? What activities should they (as opposed to others) undertake in pursuit of these? And, how should they decide what takes priority?

Thinking strategically about the future means understanding how technology, social change and globalisation are reshaping crime, public safety and police ‘demand’, but it also means revisiting some fundamental questions about the role we want the police to play in our changing society.

In the Peelian policing tradition questions like these can only be answered with reference to the public, who not only pay for policing and elect the politicians who oversee it, but provide (or withhold) the legitimacy and consent on which it depends. It is appropriate therefore that we begin our work informing the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales with an assessment of contemporary public priorities for, attitudes towards and expectations of today’s polices service.

Drawing on the Police Foundation’s own recent qualitative work exploring public policing priorities, as well as representative surveys of public opinion, our first insight paper, published today,  offers 10 key insights. I’ve summarised some of the most salient below.

First, the British public support the police. This was true in 1962 when a survey for Royal Commission on the Police allayed anxieties about “a decay in respect for properly constituted authority” and it broadly remains the case today. Our modern surveys however provide a more nuanced picture. They tell us; first, that confidence and trust in is not consistently distributed across the population (specific ethnic minority populations, in particular, experience policing less positively) and second, that overall public confidence has recently started to decline. Concerns about crime have risen-up the public agenda and service ratings (although resilient through much of austerity) have begun to slip. This appears to reflect a widespread sense of police ‘withdrawal’, not just from public space, but from routine investigation work, responding to calls for service and other aspects of public-facing police work. The Review needs to consider both how these perceptions can be turned around and how trust can be nurtured where it has never previously existed.

Second, while it is easy, in an age of online threat, hidden harm and scarce resources, to dismiss the public cry for more visible policing as stale, anachronistic clamour, it is worth noting that it has some markedly current characteristics. The public have noticed a recent ‘turn for the worse’ in their local town centres, shopping precincts and other familiar public spaces. Empty shops, run-down high streets, street homelessness and public-place substance misuse make people feel less safe – particularly when they also hear media reports of an advancing knife crime ‘epidemic’. More officers on the streets may help to ‘take the edge off’ public security anxieties but addressing the underlying causes and amplifiers will require a broader set of investments and an (often locally) co-ordinated collegiate response.

Third, while (as the above illustrates) the public respond to crime and policing issues viscerally and instinctively, they are also adept at thinking rationally and universally, and embrace the opportunity to engage with prioritisation questions, not just as consumers of security, but as ‘citizen-policymakers’ as well. We should be careful therefore about assuming that the public’s priority choices necessarily default to local, visible, ‘low-level’ crime, nuisance and disorder concerns. When asked to rank policing issues people consistently feel that the police should focus on what is most harmful and what fits best with their preconceptions about what the police (rather than other agencies, communities or citizens) do – this results in a clear public direction for the police to focus on preventing and responding to serious and sexual violence and abuse.

Finally, our qualitative and deliberative research gives a clear indication that the public’s, rather ‘traditional’, views on the police function are more habitual than ideological. When given new contextual information about the realities of modern police demand, some time to consider it and an opportunity to discuss and debate with their peers, people often come up with new (sometimes radical) suggestions for delivering public safety and welfare services, they also tend to move towards consensus, recognise complexity, think about the longer-term and see the value in community involvement and engagement (in addition to local police visibility). Significantly, they also tend to become more supportive and sympathetic towards the police and the difficult choices and challenges now being faced.

Many of the challenges confronting English and Welsh policing in the coming decades – threats emerging from new technology or transnational organised crime, for example – may well seem opaque and remote to much of the public, as will the policing responses required to meet them. This only increases the importance of placing the relationship between public and police at the heart of the strategy. There is a need to redress the perception of withdrawal, build trust where it has never flourished, address security anxieties and align strategic priorities with public values; above all however, achieving this will require convening a more sophisticated public dialogue about how to meet the safety and security challenges of the 21^st century.