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Embedding Prevention at Hertfordshire Constabulary

February 1, 2022 By admin

Embedding Prevention at Hertfordshire Constabulary

Police forces across the nation are beginning to pay more attention to how crime can be prevented, rather than solely relying on reactive approaches. One notable example is Hertfordshire’s ‘Prevention First’ strategy. Inspired by the programme of the same name in New Zealand, it is helping to embed prevention at the heart of everything that happens at the constabulary.


Objective

Hertfordshire Constabulary launched their ‘Prevention First’ approach in December 2020 with the goal to be fully implemented by 2024. The fundamental idea for this approach is to embed prevention as the golden thread running through the entirety of the force’s activities.

The programme has five key objectives guiding the mission:

  • Support our people
  • Include our workforce
  • Work with stakeholders
  • Define and deliver a preventive operating model
  • Identify and deliver measurable improvements

Activities

Hertfordshire are currently focused on bringing about new approaches in three key areas:

  1. Vision and Communications[1]

The force has evolved their vision from ‘catch criminals, reduce crime, keep people safe’ to ‘preventing harm, preventing crime, preventing offending, increasing trust, and working together.’  Continuous updates on the programme’s progress are published to the force. This frequent communication helps build momentum and a collective identity around the approach.

2. Organisational Development

The force is engaging in significant organisational changes to shift mindsets and transform culture. Led by the Chief Constable and PCC, these changes are articulated in the Police and Crime Plan and benefit from £4.1 million additional funding (for 2021-4) raised from a council tax precept.
Key initiatives within the programme are:

  • The Prevention First Academy which is delivering leadership training and more general preventive training for all police officers and staff, to ensure knowledge of prevention methodology across the force.
  • The Prevention First Hub and Prevention First Portal which provide a platform for officers and staff to request guidance and support for an identified operational issue or an organisational inefficiency.
  • Recruiting an additional 77 officers to support targeted prevention and engagement strategies. The bulk of the funding is for this recruitment process.

3. Partnership Working

Preventing police demand and organisational inefficiencies is a key ‘Prevention First ‘goal. While the initial focus has been on enhancing officer skills and mindsets – and changing internal processes and activities, the organisation will increasingly shift its focus to redeveloping their multiagency vision. This will be achieved by improving already strong partner links and creating new ones, as well as better engagement with their communities.


[1] Additionally, the force’s communication channel, ‘echo’ enhances connection with the public by offering an easily accessible mechanism for individuals to provide feedback. This improves their ability to gauge public sentiment and increase trust.

The Prevention First strategy provides an effective example of how a force can begin to develop its organisational culture and mindsets through additional training and communication.

T/Superintendent Lynda Coates, who is leading on Prevention First implementation, said:

“Investing in our people will make the Prevention First philosophy come alive. Although in the early stage of implementing this cultural shift, we are seeing growing positivity for change through the Leading for Prevention course, highlighting what preventive policing means for our leaders and how to create a ‘safe’ environment within their teams so innovation can thrive.

We are seeing teams transforming working practices, including a current project designed to free up hundreds of officer hours through better management of section 136 mental health detentions.

By equipping our workforce to confidently think differently, we will deliver meaningful and lasting changes positively impacting our communities.”

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Successful Governance in Policing

November 24, 2021 By admin

Every time you review governance, it’s an opportunity to deliver better for the public. How does successful governance look like?

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Artificial Intelligence and Policing: a Timeline of Events

October 29, 2020 By admin

Download our full decision science guide for police leaders here.

How has artificial intelligence been used in policing throughout time?

AI for policing will continue to be tested in a wide range of areas of policing, as it has already proved a useful tool for processing the vast amount of data that police forces can now access. Increasingly, police forces will start to address more risks around bias, ethical concerns, and accuracy.

1 Turing, A, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 49 (1950): 433-460

2 Rigano, C, “Using Artificial Intelligence to Address Criminal Justice Needs,” NIJ Journal 280, January 2019, https:// www.nij.gov/journals/280/Pages/using-artificial- intelligence-to-address-criminal-justice-needs.aspx.

3 Alzou, S, & Alshibly, H & Al-ma’aitah, M. (2014). Artificial Intelligence in Law Enforcement, A Review. International Journal of Advanced Information Technology. 4. 10.5121/ijait.2014.4401.

4Lapowsky, I., 2018. How The LAPD Uses Data To Predict Crime. [online] Wired. Available at: <https://www.wired.com/story/los-angeles-police-department-predictive-policing/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

5Nilsson, Patricia. “First UK Police Force To Try Predictive Policing Ends Contract”. Ft.Com, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/b34b0b08-ef19-11e8-89c8-d36339d835c0. Accessed Oct 2020.

6 Osborne, C., 2019. San Francisco Bans Police From Using Facial Recognition Tech On Residents | Zdnet. [online] ZDNet. Available at: <https://www.zdnet.com/article/san-francisco-bans-facial-recognition-tech-being-used-on-residents/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

7 National Physical Laboratory, 2020. Metropolitan Police Service Live Facial Recognition Trials. [online] London. Available at: <https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/central/advice/met/facial-recognition/met-evaluation-report.pdf> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

8 Oswald, M, Grace, J, Urwin, S &  Barnes, G(2018) Algorithmic risk assessment policing models: lessons from the Durham HART model and ‘Experimental’ proportionality, Information & Communications Technology Law, 27:2, 223-250, DOI: 10.1080/13600834.2018.1458455

9  Vincent, J., 2018. Chinese Police Are Using Facial Recognition Sunglasses To Track Citizens. [online] The Verge. Available at: <https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/8/16990030/china-facial-recognition-sunglasses-surveillance> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

10 Greig, J., 2018. Welsh Police Facial Recognition Software Has 92% Fail Rate, Showing Dangers Of Early AI. [online] TechRepublic. Available at: <https://www.techrepublic.com/article/welsh-police-facial-recognition-has-92-fail-rate-showing-dangers-of-early-ai/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

11 HMICFRS, 2018. Planning Failures In Policing Risk Public Safety – HMICFRS. [online] HMICFRS. Available at: <https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/news/news-feed/planning-failures-in-policing-risk-public-safety/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

 12 Bayern, M., 2018. Amazon AI Misidentifies Congress As Criminals, Proves It’s Not Ready For Enterprise. [online] TechRepublic. Available at: <https://www.techrepublic.com/article/amazon-ai-misidentifies-congress-as-criminals-proves-its-not-ready-for-enterprise/> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

13 Murgia, M., 2020. Met Police Try To Calm Tensions As Live Facial Recognition Hits London. [online] Ft.com. Available at: <https://www.ft.com/content/db8bfc3c-4cf4-11ea-95a0-43d18ec715f5> [Accessed 29 October 2020].

14 Hatmaker, T. ” AI Researchers Condemn Predictive Crime Software, Citing Racial Bias And Flawed Methods”. Techcrunch.Com, 2020, https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/23/ai-crime-prediction-open-letter-springer/?guccounter=1. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.

15 Matsakis, Louise. “Amazon Won’T Let Police Use Its Facial-Recognition Tech For One Year”. Wired, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-facial-recognition-police-one-year-ban-rekognition/. Accessed 29 Oct 2020.

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Leapwise Software and Services Available Through the Crown Commercial Service’s G-Cloud framework

September 23, 2020 By admin

Leapwise has been selected as a supplier to provide services on the Crown Commercial Service’s G-Cloud 12 framework (Lot 2: Cloud Software and Lot 3: Cloud support). This will make it easier for public sector organisations to buy Leapwise’s software and services, as we are a pre-approved provider. Our software solution and supporting advisory services will transform governance, decision-making and meeting effectiveness in your organisation so please get in touch to find out more.

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Police Professional Feature

September 2, 2020 By admin

We’re very pleased that our work has been featured in Police Professional’s cover story. In a special report, you can read some of our insights and what we’ve achieved in some of our most recent work.

We use decision science to work with leading policing organisations, such as Hertfordshire’s Constabulary, Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime, and the College of Policing.  By strengthening decision making across policing, we help leaders overcome both the big and small challenges –  whether it’s trying to find the optimal levels of stop and search or building robust decision-making approaches for an entire team or organization.

Police performance depends on millions of decisions – at the frontline and in the boardroom. And this month, we’ll be sharing our seven key lessons from decision science as a resource for police leaders worldwide, which you can keep track of by following us here.

You can find the full Police Professional article here.

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