Have an article you'd like to write or publish? Pitch it here →
Evidence-based analysis
Thinking About Policing
Evidence-led analysis of policing, public policy, leadership, and the decisions that shape public safety.
32 articles 22 topics 374 minutes of reading 198 views
From the engagement data Most read Live
The Murder of Henry Nowak: What the Sentencing Remarks Reveal
Procedural Justice: A Guide for Police Leaders — and How to Explain What It Actually Is
Self-Selection Policing: Catching Serious Criminals — and Bad Cops — Through the Small Offences They Can't Help Committing
How Worthing Became 'The Shoplifting Capital of the UK' — And Why That Was Never the Real Story
Seeing Is No Longer Believing: How Synthetic Evidence Could Convict an Innocent Man
Yes, Burnham Is Eyeing North Sea Oil, But Not the Way You (or Trump) Think
The Perception of the Police in the British Press
Can an Electric Car Catch a Criminal? The Physics, the Payload and the Pursuit
Newest first Latest writing
Can an Electric Car Catch a Criminal? The Physics, the Payload and the Pursuit
British policing has promised to electrify a fleet that is four-fifths diesel — but the pursuit, the armed response car and the 3am rural shift are governed by physics a procurement target cannot waive. A guide for the people signing the forms, with two interactive tools: match the car to the role, fund the charging first, and do not let a demonstration write fleet policy.
Self-Selection Policing: Catching Serious Criminals — and Bad Cops — Through the Small Offences They Can't Help Committing
Academics behind a tactic called self-selection policing say offenders who commit small rule-breaches are far more likely to be involved in serious crime — and want forces to apply the same test to misconduct in their own ranks.
How Worthing Became 'The Shoplifting Capital of the UK' — And Why That Was Never the Real Story
A fastener manufacturer's PR ranking named Worthing the worst town in the UK for shoplifting. The real driver was a police reporting scheme working as intended — and the force didn't say so for fourteen months. A case study in reading crime data, and in explaining it before someone else does.
Procedural Justice: A Guide for Police Leaders — and How to Explain What It Actually Is
Procedural justice is the best-evidenced idea in modern policing — how an officer runs an encounter shapes trust and compliance more than what the encounter decides. A working guide for leaders and policy makers on what it actually is, the trials that test it, what the evidence doesn't yet show, and a simple way to get it into a uniformed officer's head before their next interaction with the public.
The Perception of the Police in the British Press
Surveys tell us whether public confidence in the police rose or fell. This dataset shows the language that ran alongside it — a quarter-century of UK news headlines about the police, reduced to words, tone and themes. The two curves turn out not to be the same shape.
Why Medium Risk Is the Safe Option — and How Do We Learn to Accurately Grade Risk With Confidence?
On a domestic abuse call, medium is the grade we reach for when we are not sure — it feels safer than standard, which triggers nothing, and less exposed than high. But a grade chosen to protect the officer protects no victim. Understanding what standard, medium and high actually mean is how we learn to grade with confidence, and act on the medium-risk victims we are currently missing.
ASB Civil powers: A Frontline Guide to Warnings, Notices and Orders
Community protection warnings and notices, civil injunctions, criminal behaviour orders and closure orders are some of the most powerful — and most under-used — tools an officer has. With the Sentencing Act 2026 raising the bar for remand, they matter more than ever. A working guide to what each one does, the legal test, the case law on getting the terms right, real examples, and templates you can adapt.
Alex Murray and the Society That Asked Policing to Prove What Works
Alex Murray spent a career investigating murders and running counter-terrorism operations, then built the institution that asked British policing a harder question: does any of this actually work? A profile of the founder of the Society of Evidence-Based Policing.
"We are all entitled to our own opinions,
but not to our own facts."
Section Evidence & Practice
All 15 → Self-Selection Policing: Catching Serious Criminals — and Bad Cops — Through the Small Offences They Can't Help Committing
Academics behind a tactic called self-selection policing say offenders who commit small rule-breaches are far more likely to be involved in serious crime — and want forces to apply the same test to misconduct in their own ranks.
Procedural Justice: A Guide for Police Leaders — and How to Explain What It Actually Is
Procedural justice is the best-evidenced idea in modern policing — how an officer runs an encounter shapes trust and compliance more than what the encounter decides. A working guide for leaders and policy makers on what it actually is, the trials that test it, what the evidence doesn't yet show, and a simple way to get it into a uniformed officer's head before their next interaction with the public.
Why Medium Risk Is the Safe Option — and How Do We Learn to Accurately Grade Risk With Confidence?
On a domestic abuse call, medium is the grade we reach for when we are not sure — it feels safer than standard, which triggers nothing, and less exposed than high. But a grade chosen to protect the officer protects no victim. Understanding what standard, medium and high actually mean is how we learn to grade with confidence, and act on the medium-risk victims we are currently missing.
ASB Civil powers: A Frontline Guide to Warnings, Notices and Orders
Community protection warnings and notices, civil injunctions, criminal behaviour orders and closure orders are some of the most powerful — and most under-used — tools an officer has. With the Sentencing Act 2026 raising the bar for remand, they matter more than ever. A working guide to what each one does, the legal test, the case law on getting the terms right, real examples, and templates you can adapt.
A Police Leader's Guide to AI
Artificial intelligence is reaching policing faster than most leaders were ever trained to understand it. A plain-English guide that builds from the basics — what the words mean, what AI can and can't do, how it uses your data, the risks to own, and where it genuinely helps.
PoliceAI: What is it, why do we need it, and who runs it?
In June 2026 the government launched PoliceAI, a national centre to develop and scale artificial intelligence across the 43 forces of England and Wales. This is a working guide for leaders — what the institution is, the platforms underneath it, and the questions worth asking before any of it reaches your force. Built to grow as the picture does.
The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee: Confidence or Crime?
The Guarantee borrows the language of evidence — data-guided presence, hotspot patrolling. But it folds together two different jobs. A named officer per ward builds confidence. Hotspot patrolling cuts crime. The evidence for each is strong and specific, and the design honours it in some places and departs from it in others.
Nitazenes - What This New drug Means For British Policing
Synthetic opioids have landed in the UK. What nitazenes are, why they are more dangerous than the heroin they are displacing, and the strategic, tactical and operational picture for policing.
“Do you understand?” - Does this question serve a purpose?
"Do you understand?" — asked after the caution, at booking-in, before a plea — sounds like fairness but often works as a ritual rather than a test: it invites a yes that keeps the system moving while quietly failing the people who most need clarity. Why we should stop asking and start explaining.
The Legal Aid Paradox - when "I don't need a solicitor, I've done nothing wrong" undermines procedural fairness
The suspects who most need legal advice in police custody are the least likely to ask for it — and that undermines one of PACE 1984's core protections.
The Hidden Crisis: How Police Burnout Threatens Officer Safety and Public Trust
Burnout raises the risk of excessive force and corrodes public trust. What the evidence says about exhausted officers, and what forces can do about it.
When Police Stop Investigating Crime: The Fuel Theft Crisis hurting British Policing
Clear CCTV, a registration plate, precise timestamps — and still “case closed, no suspect identified”. How fuel theft became effectively decriminalised.
The Officers We’re Losing: Why British Policing Must Rethink Cognitive Diversity
British policing invests heavily in recruitment and training, then systematically loses officers whose cognitive profiles — ADHD, autism, dyslexia — do not fit institutional assumptions about what "good" looks like. Why cognitive diversity is a strategic capability senior leaders cannot afford to manage out.
Seeing Is No Longer Believing: How Synthetic Evidence Could Convict an Innocent Man
Every image and video in this article is fictional and AI-generated for illustration. John Smith, Margaret Doyle and Wessex Police do not exist, and no real person or event is depicted. A short case study in how cheaply CCTV can now be faked — and what an investigator has to do to keep a manipulated clip out of the file.
Boosting Public Confidence Through Neighbourhood Policing
Delivered well, neighbourhood policing produces “quick, large and sustained” gains in public confidence. The evidence behind that claim, weighed.
Section Leadership & Culture
All 3 →
Martyn's Law: An overview for Police, Business owners and Local Authorities
A mother's six-year campaign turned the Manchester Arena attack into the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 — Martyn's Law. A plain-English guide to what the law says, where it is on the road to enforcement, what it means for businesses, police officers and police leaders — and a practical, provisional checklist for getting a venue ready.
The Murder of Henry Nowak: What the Sentencing Remarks Reveal
On 1 June 2026, a judge sentenced Vickrum Digwa to life for the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak. Working from the judge's own sentencing remarks rather than the headlines, this is a careful, evidence-based account of what the court actually found — including what it found about the police response.
What Palantir's Advance Means for British Policing — and Should We Trust Them?
A CIA-seeded American data firm has moved from the edge of UK public-sector IT to a structural position inside defence, health and, increasingly, policing. What has actually been bought, what the software does, and why it is contested.
Section Influential People
All 7 → Alex Murray and the Society That Asked Policing to Prove What Works
Alex Murray spent a career investigating murders and running counter-terrorism operations, then built the institution that asked British policing a harder question: does any of this actually work? A profile of the founder of the Society of Evidence-Based Policing.
Jason Roach and the Art of Catching Criminals by Their Small Mistakes
A former Home Office crime analyst who became one of British policing's most practically useful academics: Professor Jason Roach gave the service self-selection policing, a psychologist's eye for offender decision-making, and a career-long insistence that research should help the officer on shift. A profile.
The Society of Evidence-Based Policing: Nurturing the Idea That Every Officer Can Test What Works
The SEBP's real value isn't lobbying or publishing — it's lowering the bar so that any officer with a good idea can test it, get support to do so properly, and share what they find. Here is what it is, what it actually does, and why that matters.
Susanne Knabe-Nicol and the Last Mile of Evidence-Based Policing
A profile of Dr Susanne Knabe-Nicol — the 'Police Science Dr' — who left a decade inside policing to fix the problem that holds evidence-based practice back: the research that could change how officers work, but that almost no officer knows exists
Jerry Ratcliffe and the Case for Intelligence-Led Policing
A London beat officer turned Philadelphia professor, Jerry Ratcliffe spent a career arguing that policing should aim its scarce resources at the few places, times and people that produce most of the harm — and then test whether it worked. A profile of the criminologist behind intelligence-led policing and the Reducing Crime podcast.
Lawrence Sherman and the Invention of Evidence-Based Policing
In 1981 Lawrence Sherman ran a domestic violence call as a scientific experiment, and policing was never quite the same. A profile of the American criminologist who argued that the police should be tested like medicine — and who taught the officers, Alex Murray among them, who carried the idea into British policing.
Sir Robert Peel and the Invention of Policing by Consent
In 1829 a Home Secretary persuaded a suspicious country to accept the first modern police force — unarmed, in plain blue, and answerable to the public rather than the Crown. A profile of Sir Robert Peel and the idea that still underwrites British policing: that the police are only ever the public in uniform.
Section Technology & Innovation
All 5 → Can an Electric Car Catch a Criminal? The Physics, the Payload and the Pursuit
British policing has promised to electrify a fleet that is four-fifths diesel — but the pursuit, the armed response car and the 3am rural shift are governed by physics a procurement target cannot waive. A guide for the people signing the forms, with two interactive tools: match the car to the role, fund the charging first, and do not let a demonstration write fleet policy.
How Worthing Became 'The Shoplifting Capital of the UK' — And Why That Was Never the Real Story
A fastener manufacturer's PR ranking named Worthing the worst town in the UK for shoplifting. The real driver was a police reporting scheme working as intended — and the force didn't say so for fourteen months. A case study in reading crime data, and in explaining it before someone else does.
The Perception of the Police in the British Press
Surveys tell us whether public confidence in the police rose or fell. This dataset shows the language that ran alongside it — a quarter-century of UK news headlines about the police, reduced to words, tone and themes. The two curves turn out not to be the same shape.
Does Domestic Abuse Spike When England Play? Reading the Evidence Honestly
You have seen the headline: domestic abuse rises 38% when England lose. It comes from a real study — but the real story is more careful, more troubling, and more useful than the number that travels. A More or Less Policing look at what the evidence actually supports.
More or Less Policing: how to read the numbers without being fooled
A new strand, in the spirit of Radio 4's More or Less: police statistics are everywhere, and most of them are easy to misread. Here's how to read them — starting with the trap inside every stop-and-search figure.
Put the evidence to work
Three free tools built for this site — a research assistant, a live crime dashboard, and a media-perception explorer. Sign in once to unlock all three.