Why should academics care about evidence based policing?

Karl Roberts

Professor of Policing and

Criminal JusticeWestern Sydney University

Plan

• Much research on policing

• But much of it has had a limited impact on police practice

• Explore why

• Why should academics care about police research?

• How might we improve impact?

• Examples of approaches to using evidence in policing

Reasons for lack of impact of research on policing

• Following discussions with various colleagues…

• Dialogue of the deaf– Difficulty understanding each others position– Academic lack of understanding of the policing context– Police lack of understanding of academia– Police often don’t know what questions to ask

• Academic disinterest– Lack of academic’s interest in policing or the policing implications of research

• Tension between study ‘of’ police and research ‘with’ police– Academics fear of losing of independence– Academics as commentator NOT involved

• Overly critical approach– E.g. Critical criminology

• Relevant research– Criminology doesn't’ ‘own’ police research

Communicationof findings

• Reaching the practitioners– Pressure to publish in academic journals

– ‘publish or perish’

– Often no reward for reports or industry publications

– Publications miss police practitioners

– Publication in ‘hard to find’ or obscure locations for police

• ‘Academic language’ often obscure

• Implications of findings for police not often spelled out

Funding

• Limited funding for policing research

• Career rewards for academics for ‘category 1’ funding

– ie ARC grants – depends upon what ARC values

– Limited by cuts to funding

Other issues

• Academic arrogance– Owners of knowledge

– Lack of recognition of other ‘knowledge economies’

– ‘That’s the wrong question the correct question is this…’ syndrome

• Greatest rewards in academia are for ‘pure’ rather than applied research– Policing journals relatively low impact

Police attitudes

• … and from police practitioners

• Questioning of the relevance of work• Lack of time and/or interest to be concerned with

‘evidence’• Research takes too long• Overt focus upon skills and ‘work arounds’• Sensitivity to ‘criticisms with no solutions’ offered

by some academics• ‘Security’ concerns

Contextual Challenges

• Policing is often complex– Many interacting factors

– Often cant know which are most relevant

– Rules out simple unidimesional solutions

– Solutions may be approximations and time dependent

– No such thing as being completely ‘right’

• Policing problems are often immediate and need real time solutions

Why should academics care about police research?

• Pragmatically– There is likely to be money and career progression in it

• From Government – Change in focus of what research and universities are for– Move so that academics measured on ‘impact’ of research– From ‘publish or perish’ to ‘collaborate or crumble’ …Malcolm Turnbull

• Drying up of funding• Ensure diversity of thinking in police work

– If only a few academics involved limited view

• Challenge of what you think you know…– Working with complexity– Ultimate test of the adequacy of theory

• Making a better world– Contribution to better outcomes through evidence based policy and

practice

Like what you see?Be part of our conversation.

informa.com.au

Join our e-newsletter

Making it happen

• Listen and Understand– Issues and challenges– Contexts– Minimize assumptions

• Research roundtables to discuss, identify and specify issues– Police led– Expertise must be evidence based

• Importance of multidisciplinary voices– Identify what expertise is needed– What expertise is available– Who has it

• No one has all of the answers …

Using evidence in policing

• Two broad ways

– Generate research of direct policing/academic value to answer specific questions or test out specific approaches• E.g. QCET

• Much of EBP debate is about designing and running such projects

• RCT gives direct evidence of the efficacy of certain approaches

• Approach less useful when dealing with complex emerging issues made of many competing factors where it is not clear how or where to start

Using evidence in policing

• Another way of using academic expertise – academics themselves are ‘evidence’– Draw on multidisciplinary understanding of evidence base to

advise in real time on pressing police problems– Use of expertise to help further define and specify the problem– Useful for complex emerging problems requiring immediate

solutions– Answers to the ‘where do we start’ and ‘what should we do?’

question– May then design ‘experimental’ and other tests of hypotheses

– Discuss examples of this…

Examples…

• Operation Alcyone– Part of UK policing response to terrorism– 2007 - 2012

• 2005 terror attacks in London• ‘Unprecedented threat’• ‘How do we interview Islamist extremists?’ – interviewing suspects

identified as particular problem area• Old ways failed• Even evidence based best practice

– ‘Terrorists never talk’– Audit of CT interviews: 3% of terrorist suspect interviews resulted in

actionable intelligence/evidence

Examples• Roundtable convened

– Multidisciplinary• Academics, Police, Security, Military• Law, criminology, sociology, politics, psychology, psychiatry, economics,

business, Islamic scholars, language experts, data analysts

– What do we know?– What do we need to know?– How do we proceed?

• Some dialogue of the deaf challenges– ‘It will take ten years to have a testable theory of terrorism’ – academic– ‘What bloody use is that when people are blowing themselves up on

the underground’ – CT officer– ‘You are asking the wrong question the real question is what socio-

political issues produce these terrorists’ … academic– ‘We don’t care …we just want to know what to do in an interview’ …

police officer

Example

• Multidisciplinary steering group created• Identified knowledge and training gaps• Training and research program built• Based upon translation and application of research evidence and

expertise into a usable product• Contents

– Understanding Islam– Understanding extremist motivation– Development of interview strategies

• Psychological assessment• Psycholinguistics• Stress management• Interview planning• Applying identity models

Example

• Evaluation of Alcyone– Perceptions of students and presenters– Perceptions of observers– Operational Impact evaluated

• Staff perceptions• Audit of intelligence/evidence obtained, amount and usefulness

• Results– 2 year post training– Positive views of knowledge development– Greater staff confidence– Tangible outcomes

• All interviewees spoke in interview• 78% of interviewees gave information that was operationally significant• Improvement in prosecution outcomes – more useful evidence

Also wins for both police and academics ….

• Publications…

• Published book– Pearse,J. (editor) (2015) Investigating Terrorism. Wiley

• Edited journal– Milne, B. and Roberts, KA (2011) special edition of the British Journal of Forensic Practice,

Emerald

• Papers– Roberts, K.A. (2012) Strategic Interrogation: Interviewing terrorist suspects in Kumar, U.

Countering Terrorism: Psychosocial Strategies, Sage – Roberts, KA (2011) Police interviews with terrorist suspect. British Journal of Forensic Practice

13(2) 124-135– Roberts, KA (2013) Police Urgent Interviews with Terrorist Suspects under PACE in Melchor C.

de Guzman, Dilip K. Das, Aideo and Mintie Das The Evolution Of Policing: Worldwide Innovations And Insights. Routledge

– Roberts, KA and Herrington, V (2010) Applying theory to intelligence practice: counter terrorism and the psychology of small group development. AIPIO Journal 18, 23-42

– Roberts, KA (2010) Ethical interviews with Islamist terror suspects In J. Antrobus (Ed) Interdisciplinary analyses of terrorism, Cambridge

– Roberts, KA (2009) Interviewing Islamist extremists: The case of public safety interviews

Examples

– Operational advice

– Multidisciplinary round table discussion of ongoing homicide and serious criminal cases

– Applying academic and other knowledge to the specific case to generate

• Provide greater knowledge to investigator

• Generate Investigative leads

– Positive outcomes for investigations

Examples

• Design of a stalking risk checklist for use in policing– Roberts and Sheridan 2009 -2015

• Development of policing approaches to honor based violence– Roberts, KA, Lloyd, G and Campbell, G. (2014) Policing

honor based violence: investigation and prevention. Taylor Francis, New York

Key to success of this

• Multidisciplinary voices– No one has all the answers

• Open Discussion• Trust and willingness to share information• Adds value by contributing

– different voices • academic rigor and knowledge• Contributions must be based upon evidence

• Evaluation of outcomes critical• Feedback of learning into refining approaches

Conclusion

• Much academic work on policing has little impact

• Variety of reasons

• Academics should care about policing research

• Two broad models that add value to policing (not necessarily mutually exclusive)

– Answering specific operational questions through research

– Using academics and others as the evidence to advise in real time on operational problems

Like what you see?Be part of our conversation.

informa.com.au

Join our e-newsletter