Plant seeds, not billboards: how evidence-based policing should grow

Editor’s view · The evidence and examples in this article relate mainly to policing in England and Wales.

Evidence-based policing will stay a specialist interest if the only questions that reach it are already polished, sponsored and aligned to a senior portfolio.

The better model starts with the unfinished thought: a constable notices a recurring problem, a PCSO sees something working unusually well, an investigator cannot understand why a process is designed the way it is, or a member of police staff thinks there must be a better way.

Leaders do not need to originate those ideas. Their job is to make it safe to raise them, obvious where they should go, possible to work on them and worthwhile to share what follows.

The habit I would build around is simple:

Spot it. Tell it. Work it. Share it.

Not a research method. A route into one.

The thought comes before the project

The College of Policing says evidence-based policing can be used by everyone in policing. It describes EBP as using the best available evidence to inform and challenge policies, practices and decisions, with research methods matched to the question.

That is broader than a university course, fellowship or force research portfolio.

Policing is full of small observations that never become formal questions:

“I keep seeing this.”

“Why do we do it like that?”

“This seems to work better.”

“Has anybody checked this?”

Those are not research proposals. They are barely ideas. That is why the organisation needs somewhere for them to go.

Experience is not proof, and a good copper’s hunch can be wrong. But experience is a legitimate source of questions. EBP should help those questions survive long enough to be checked.

A disciplined organisation needs a visible route for unfinished ideas

A disciplined organisation teaches people quickly what is welcome.

If the first response to an idea is indifference, bureaucracy or “that is not our priority”, staff learn not to bother. The better first response is much simpler:

Tell me more.

Then help the person find the right next step.

This is not theoretical. Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Prevention First model includes an online portal through which officers and staff can submit ideas, initiatives or operational problems to a central hub. The hub scans the evidence base, identifies practice elsewhere and provides tailored support. Its leadership training also includes problem solving, reflective learning, EBP and coaching.

Bedfordshire Police has built a different route. Its Dragons’ Den process is intended to give officers and staff a clear path for ideas and a psychologically safe environment in which to develop them. The College classifies that practice as untested, so it is an example of organisational design, not proof that the model improves policing.

The common idea is useful: do not tell staff to innovate and then leave them to navigate the organisation alone.

Do not ask staff to be innovative. Build somewhere for their unfinished ideas to go.

Spot it. Tell it. Work it. Share it.

This is the front door I would use.

Spot it

Experience tells you something deserves attention: a problem, an odd pattern or something that works better than expected.

Tell it

Say it before it is polished. Talk it through with people who will listen, challenge it and help sharpen the question.

Work it

Put people around the thought. Check evidence and data, involve those affected and test a change where that is safe and appropriate.

Share it

Pass on what happened: what worked, what failed, what surprised you and what somebody else should try next.

The important word is work. Not every idea needs an experiment. Sometimes working it means finding evidence that already answers the question. Sometimes it means an analyst checking whether the pattern exists. Sometimes it needs a researcher. Sometimes it needs a small authorised test. Sometimes the original idea is wrong.

All of those outcomes are useful.

The College’s organisational guidance says specialist problem-solving and analytical support should be accessible across a force, alongside systems for sharing practice at force, regional, national and international levels. That is the infrastructure this model needs behind it.

Teach it through stories, then keep the evidence attached

I would not start the first workshop with research methods or a force-priorities slide.

Bring together a small mixed group. Tell a good policing story. Let them argue about what happened and why. Show them what the evidence changed. Include an idea that failed.

Then ask them to bring something from their own work.

Jenny Richards and Laura Hammond describe one UK police-academic partnership that used enjoyable EBP learning, peer support and a community of practice between 2017 and 2021. Their article is a reflective account, not a controlled evaluation of effectiveness, but it shows that EBP learning does not have to be reduced to formal research training.

Stories are the way I would get attention. They are not the way I would decide whether something works.

Keep the evidence attached. Say what was measured. Say what was compared. Say what failed. If the evidence is weak, say so.

Start with the story. Keep the evidence attached.

Support the person without protecting the idea

Positive reinforcement should attach to the behaviour we want: noticing, speaking, checking and sharing.

That does not mean praising every suggestion as brilliant. It means treating the person constructively while being willing to dismantle the idea.

Thank somebody for checking a belief and discovering it was wrong. Recognise the officer who found an existing answer instead of inventing a new project. Give credit to the analyst who stopped a weak conclusion. Share the failed test that saves another force from repeating it.

If recognition goes only to successful projects, we create an incentive to make every project look successful.

The first response should not be “prove it”. It should be “tell me more”. Proof comes later, if the question warrants it.

Look for the people who think differently

I would also use this system to find people whose thinking does not naturally follow the dominant route.

Acas describes neurodiversity as natural differences in how people think, learn, act and process information. The CIPD’s neuroinclusion work argues that organisations cannot benefit from diversity of thought unless different thinking styles are able to contribute.

That is not evidence that neurodivergent officers and staff are inherently more innovative. They are not one type of thinker and should not be turned into an organisational stereotype.

My judgement is narrower. If I were leading a force, I would actively look for the people who keep asking why, who notice patterns, who become intensely interested in fixing something everyone else has learnt to tolerate, or who approach a familiar problem from an unexpected angle.

Some will be neurodivergent. Some will not.

Give them a channel. Give them confidence that an unfinished thought is welcome. Put supportive people at the other end.

Let the bubbles rise

Useful ideas already appear across policing. The problem is that many stay inside the team that produced them.

A sergeant fixes a local process. A detective finds a better handover. A PCSO understands why one approach works on one estate and fails on another. A member of police staff quietly designs around a ridiculous bit of bureaucracy.

Leaders should make it easier for that learning to rise and move sideways.

The College’s evidence champions’ network already gives officers and staff a forum to raise issues, ask questions and collaborate with other forces. The Society of Evidence Based Policing provides regional contacts. Those routes should be easy to reach from the frontline, not visible only to people already inside the EBP community.

A useful story should be able to travel from a shift to a force, from a force to a region and from a region to the national conversation.

Start small and keep the group alive

If I were a chief constable trying to grow EBP, I would start with a small cohort rather than a campaign.

Recruit across ranks, roles and shifts. Make the workshop worth attending. Give people protected time to work on their own questions. Give them direct access to analysts, researchers and experienced practitioners. Do not judge unfinished ideas at the door.

Then keep the group together.

Help willing participants support a few more people. Connect those groups across the force. Link them into regional and national networks. Track whether questions get answered, whether staff receive the promised support, whether learning is reused elsewhere and whether people still bring ideas after the novelty of the workshop has gone.

Some of that first cohort will become sergeants, inspectors, academics and senior leaders. Others will remain frontline practitioners who influence colleagues every day. Both matter.

This is a proposal, not a proven programme. Pilot it. Measure it. Change it if it does not work.

Leaders do not need to have the idea. Their job is to make it safe to tell, possible to work and worthwhile to share.

Plant seeds, not billboards

Evidence-based policing will not become normal because another strategy says evidence matters.

It becomes normal when someone says, “I’ve noticed something”, and the organisation knows what to do next.

The leadership task is to create that route, protect the time and reward the behaviour. Then let the ideas move.

Plant seeds, not billboards.

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Sources, limits and image credit

The Spot it. Tell it. Work it. Share it. model and the proposed cohort are editorial proposals, not evaluated policing interventions. College of Policing guidance cited here applies to England and Wales. Existing force examples show that routes, hubs and structured support can be built; they do not establish that this specific model will improve operational outcomes.

• College of Policing — Evidence-based policing.
• College of Policing — Organisational governance (2023).
• College of Policing — Organisational infrastructure and capability (2023).
• College of Policing — Prevention First, Hertfordshire Constabulary.
• College of Policing — Encouraging the workforce to share and develop innovation, Bedfordshire Police (2026).
• Richards and Hammond — Innovative approaches to embedding evidence-based policing (2026; published online 2025).
• Acas — Neurodiversity at work.
• CIPD — Neuroinclusion at work report 2024.
• Society of Evidence Based Policing — regional contacts.
• Hero image: AI-generated illustration of officers discussing ideas in an ordinary UK police briefing room. It depicts no real people or incident.