Views

The College is supporting police forces across the country who are seeking to improve how they prevent crime and reduce demand. There are two key strands of work detailed below:  

1. Setting out a public health approach which emphasises prevention is always better than cure. 

2. Developing a problem-orientated policing method that helps officers and staff to analyse a problem, establish its underlying causes and implement solutions that prevent the problem arising in future. 

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Public Health Approach 

Objective 

The College of Policing signed up to the policing, health and social care consensus in 2018, committing to implement preventive and early intervention methodologies that embody a public health approach. Principles for the approach were drawn up and published in a discussion paper in 2019, defining public health approaches in policing as encompassing five key areas: 

• A population focus¹ 
• The causes of causes² 
• Prevention 
• Data, evidence and outcomes 
• Partnerships, communities and systems 

Activities and Results 

The College has conducted surveys for leads and practitioners across the 43 forces to understand current ‘public health’ police initiatives, what the enablers are and how they are applied. 40 forces responded to two different surveys, which revealed a wide variation in maturity of public health approaches across the forces. Although, one commonality is that trauma-informed practice has become a central element of police training. Results are included in the recently published landscape review.  

Working with the college, the Knowledge Hub provides a platform bringing together partners, academics and researchers to facilitate collaboration, evidence collation and data sharing. So far, there are 126 individual members facilitating ongoing research and workforce development through webinars focusing on how to bring a public health approach embodying prevention to issues such as, knife crime, modern slavery, and gambling. The four nations webinar hosted 1500+ attendees spanning over 5 days where each nation presented a different issue. Overall, the feedback was positive.   

Challenges 

There are several challenges with implementing public health approaches in policing. For example, the lack of shared, coherent definitions for aspects of public health approaches such as ‘trauma-informed practice’, have made it difficult to define the key changes required. There is also still a live debate about how far policing organisations should be leading (versus supporting) work that focuses on addressing early years causes of crime and vulnerability.  

Additionally, the current culture and performance measurements in policing are not structured to  incentivise long-term  prevention – and policing and partners are struggling to measure the impacts of public health-oriented approaches. Although building awareness of the public health approaches and the benefits through leadership briefings is helping to tackle this. 

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Problem Solving 

Objective  

Alongside applying public health approaches to policing, the College is focused on problem-orientated policing. This involves a systematic approach to problem solving analysis and decision-making using the SARA³ model. Officers and staff are encouraged to work through a specific crime problem by analysing it, developing a targeted intervention, and assessing the response to understand the impact. 

Activities and Results 

Part of implementing this approach is the development of the ‘What Works Toolkit’. This practice sets out the evidence base for supporting choices on how to tackle different problems (e.g. knife crime, domestic abuse). In addition, the college is establishing new guidelines to support forces to implement and sustain a problem-orientated approach. In most cases, this will equate to moving upstream from a problem to work out how it could have best been prevented, rather than solely focusing on the investigation. 

To facilitate implementation of guidelines, the College is employing insights from Behavioural Science such as the COM-B model of behaviour change to encourage adoption of problem-solving methodologies and use of evidence. This approach involves a particular focus on enhancing motivation and opportunity to implement guidelines. 

Many forces have commissioned or delivered training on problem-solving either for all officers or a sub-set (for example for neighbourhood officers where problem solving is a key element of the College 2018 Neighbourhood Policing Guidelines).  

Challenges 

A key challenge for problem solving approaches is that they usually require investment of time and effort beyond what is often required to investigate individual cases. For officers, staff and volunteers, this can be challenging to manage given current caseloads.  Also, significant problem-solving projects often require dedicated teams. 

While problem solving work often has a very strong return on investment in terms of improved safety or other outcomes, many policing organisations do not have systematic ways of resourcing problem solving efforts – and/or are restricted by the lack of processes in place that demonstrate how to measure the cost-effectiveness of problem-orientated policing. 

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The College of Policing’s activities demonstrate how preventive policing is being considered and facilitated on a national scale. Although the approaches are still developing, they pave the way for a nation of forces that prioritise crime and harm prevention with the aim of improving societal issues in the long-term. 

Footnotes: 

1. Part of the approach delivering interventions at a populational level. 

2. The causes of causes represents understanding what are the underlying elements driving an issue 

3. Also called OSARA (Objective, Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment). 

Over 10 years ago, Durham Police began to incorporate a problem solving approach to policing under the leadership of Chief Constable Mike Barton. Today, with DCC Dave Orford leading the approach and CC Jo Farrell overseeing the force, Durham Police has been credited with multiple international awards for their initiatives focused on prevention and harm reduction.   

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Strategy  

In Durham, the problem-solving approach is observed through two lenses: how it can be focused to deal with local issues using local knowledge, and how it can be scaled or generalised to apply to more high-level strategic problems.  

In addition, this approach balances evidence-based practice and value-based practice. The force encourages adoption of evidence-based practice by celebrating interventions via an annual conference. During the event, problem solving initiatives proving significant harm and demand reduction, and prevention, are shared across the force, demonstrating the positive impact of problem-orientated policing.  

This approach is demonstrated in the ‘Problem Solving Pivot’ (See appendix 1). 

Activities and Results  

There are a number of flagship initiatives focused on prevention:  

1. Checkpoint – an initiative aimed at breaking the cycle of repeat offending. The programme works by diverting offenders away from the traditional criminal justice pathways such as magistrates courts. Instead, they are enrolled on a four month programme that helps identify the underlying drivers of their criminal behaviour. The programme was evaluated using a randomised control trial, which found a decrease in reoffending rates by 16% compared to those who went through traditional pathways. The initiative won the 2019 international Goldstein Award for problem solving in policing. 

2. Community peer mentor scheme – an initiative focused on improving the lives of individuals by addressing vulnerability and mental health. The  scheme helps to identify the root cause of an issue, before trying to tackle it. The overall aim is to make people feel safe and reduce demand of the front line staff. The programme received the Tilley Award and saved millions of pounds. 

3. The ‘Stamp it out’ initiative focused on tackling antisocial behaviour. This intervention involved the use of a chalk based stencil of a footprint to highlight the issue in areas with high ASB, acting as a deterrence. See appendix 2 for an image of the stencil. The results lead to a positive impact in reduced ASB and improved safety in the relevant areas. A full evaluation report is being conducted externally. 

Training 

Every officer and member of staff is required to spend two to three hours with the chief constable on a problem solving workshop to continue embedding the approach across the force.  

Officers are also encouraged to pursue academic studies such as Master’s degrees. The knowledge gained conducting research on these courses is then applied to the force on return. 

Challenges 

Officers need to break the habit of going straight to the response phase focused on ‘fixing’ issues. This transition is not aided by current performance measures which focus on short-term outcomes, whereas problem solving and prevention-focused policing often realise more long-term outcomes. Alternative markers, such as public trust in police, should be considered as key performance indicators, as such factors notably impact officers’ ability to intervene early, preventing the escalation of issues.  

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Durham provides an example of a more established approach to problem-solving, demonstrating the substantial results that can be achieved through innovative preventive interventions. Their emphasis on the importance of celebrating best practice has helped to build confidence in evidence-based practice, establishing an example of how a force can enhance the mindsets of its officers and staff to embed preventive thinking.  

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

North Yorkshire Police are increasingly embedding prevention and early intervention as a central theme running through all their activity. The force has launched a number of initiatives with the objective of reducing harm to individuals and communities. The following initiatives highlight some of the force’s activities.  

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Activities and Results  

Cops vs Kids  

In summer 2021, NYP launched an initiative, in partnership with British E-sports Association, designed to build trust and confidence with vulnerable young people through engagement. This cohort was involved in antisocial behaviour, regularly going missing and/or were generally mistrustful of the police and other authorities. The scheme entailed officers and PCSOs meeting with the young people in a neutral environment and playing competitive video games. A relatively simple intervention resulted in increased engagement between the young people and the officers involved, and a positive impact on antisocial behaviour and school exclusions. An evaluation report is under way, with the view of expanding the scheme. There has been interest from other forces, and PREVENT (a programme safeguarding young people from being drawn into terrorism), in adopting this approach. 

Pubwatch 

The police are focusing on prevention and harm reduction in relation to violence against women and girls. Through the Pubwatch initiative the force have been training door staff to be able to spot signs of abuse, increasing the chance of early intervention. They have also been encouraging restaurants and bars to use nationwide programs such as Ask for Angela. This approach has initiated a series of positive interventions reducing harm and improving safety. 

Early Action Together  

The force’s Partnership Hub is developing a preventive place-based policing approach, working hand in hand with partners to develop a broad understanding of diverse community needs. The aim is to build trust with communities and intervene early with the most appropriate resources, before issues escalate. This approach will also encourage the public to be more resourceful – solving issues before requiring public services.  

Training 

The entire force is going through new training over the next three years, with the first stage completed at the beginning of 2021. The training will embed and enhance use of the  SARA¹ approach to problem solving. It will also involve sharing lived experiences of victims and perpetrators to demonstrate how police interactions can impact self-esteem and wellbeing, and potentially longer-term life choices. Highlighting this in training helps to build a more trauma and vulnerability informed force. Overall, the training has been well received and the feedback has been positive.   

Challenges 

Methods for measuring the impact of prevention are in their infancy. Therefore, it is difficult for individual forces to evaluate their initiatives in order to understand what works, and develop the case for further investment. 

Also, as embedding prevention is an innovative approach, forces are having to design new training, support and evaluation from scratch to begin shifting mindsets and culture to become more prevention-orientated.  

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North Yorkshire Police is now looking to learn from its work on prevention, and develop its approaches. They are one of several forces pursuing a more prevention-oriented model, and we share other examples of developing practice below.  

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.

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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.

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[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.”

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