Police Use of Research Evidence: Recommendations for Improvement

This brief takes the reader through a 10-year journey of seeking to embed Evidence Based Policing within one of the largest police forces in the world - the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England - from the inside. As a topic, Evidence Based Policing has generated considerable recent interest and academic discussion - although largely remains without a consistent guiding voice for police practitioners.

The aim of the brief is to expand upon the current discussions and address this gap within the day-to-day reality of policing where translation of research is a routine part of the day job.

The book is organised into three sections: the first explores receptivity to evidence, asking practitioners to locate where they are on a continuum of evidence based craftwork; the second presents the importance of programme integrity and effective implementation in police craft; and the final section explores the challenges in professionalising policing and offers a more nuanced discussion around what it really means to be evidenced based.

Throughout the brief the authors promote an insider whole-force strategic approach in landing evidence into policing 'business as normal' as opposed to an external academic or educated individual officer translation approach. Over the course of the monograph the authors draw upon their decade of experience providing case studies, toolkits, exercises, anecdotes and research experience as an inspiration for police practitioners both to practically support and inspire better evidence based working as part of the day job.

Professor Betsy Stanko is Head, Evidence and Insight, Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime in London.  For over a decade, she worked inside Corporate Development, London Metropolitan Police Service, establishing a social research function alongside performance analysis.  In her first life, she was a professor of criminology, teaching and researching at Clark University (USA), Brunel University, Cambridge University and Royal Holloway, University of London (where she is an Emeritus Professor of Criminology).  She has published over 80 books and articles over her academic career.  The most cited of these works is Intimate Intrusions:  Women’s Experiences of Male Violence, published in 1985, and reissued as an ebook by Routledge in 2013. She has been awarded a number of lifetime achievement awards from the American Society of Criminology, most notably the Vollmer Award (1996), recognising outstanding influence of her academic work on criminal justice practice. From 1997-2002 she was the Director of the ESRC Violence Research Programme.  In 2002, she joined the Cabinet Office, in the Prime Minister’s Office of Public Services Reform.  In 2013 she was a member of the Adebowale Commission on Mental Health and Policing.  She is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, a visiting professor at University College London (from 2014), a visiting scholar at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. She was awarded an OBE for her services to Policing in the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Dr. Paul Dawson is the Research Manager in Evidence and Insight, Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime in London. He is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He previously worked for four years within the National Health Service followed by five years in the Home Office prior to joining the Metropolitan Police Service in 2008. He holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Birmingham investigating the empirical contribution of offender weapon-use within the analysis of serious sexual offending.