I want to understand the approach
Begin with the relationship between research, professional judgement and the problem in front of you.
How the SEBP helps practitioners use evidenceStart here
Evidence-based policing: a practical starting guide
Start with a policing question, find relevant research and examine what it supports. A reading guide to evidence-based policing, practical examples and research tools.
21 articles · All topics →
The starting point
Use evidence to examine a policing decision
Evidence-based policing brings research into decisions about what police do and how they assess the result. Start with a question you need to answer, then examine the evidence relevant to it.
This guide connects Thinking About Policing's explanations and arguments. Follow each article to its original sources, methods and qualifications. The material is written for UK readers; check the jurisdiction and setting of each example before applying it elsewhere.
Read our account of the SEBP's approach to research and professional judgement.
A route through the reading
Start with the question you have
I have an idea from frontline work
Follow the argument for giving unfinished ideas a clear route to support, scrutiny and testing.
Taking a frontline idea into evidence-based practiceI want a practical example
Explore neighbourhood policing through the separate questions of public confidence, crime and implementation.
What the neighbourhood policing evidence can answerI want to examine everyday encounters
Use procedural justice to explore how a clear idea becomes a practical policing approach, and how its effects are assessed.
The evidence and limits of procedural justiceReading with a decision in mind
Check what the study actually establishes
Use these prompts to work through an article and its sources. They are an editorial reading aid, rather than a validated assessment scale.
- What changed, and for whom?
- Name the outcome, population, place and period. Keep recorded crime, public confidence and officer activity separate.
- What was it compared with?
- Check the research design and the alternatives it can rule out. A change after an intervention is a starting observation; examine what supports attributing that change to the intervention.
- What would transfer to this setting?
- Look at implementation, resources, local conditions and legal context. Record differences that could alter the outcome.
- What would change the decision?
- Identify uncertainty, possible harms and the evidence that would justify adopting, adapting, stopping or testing the approach.
These prompts apply TAP's standards for evidence, interpretation and recommendation.
Put the reading to use
Write down the question before choosing a solution
Record the problem, the people affected, the decision you face and the outcome you want to understand. Add what is already known and what remains uncertain. That gives a colleague, analyst or researcher something specific to examine.
Explore the Evidence & Research Lab for research assistance, practical summaries and data tools. The tools require a free account; this guide and the linked articles are available to read without signing in.
Guide reviewed 10 September 2026. Suggest a correction or a useful addition.
Explore the collection
Leadership & Culture
Plant seeds, not billboards: how evidence-based policing should grow
How police leaders can help frontline ideas become tested improvements: spot it, tell it, work it, share it.
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Evidence & Practice
Before Serious Misconduct: Can Police Data Identify Harmful Team Cultures Earlier?
Can complaints, use of force, driving standards and misconduct data identify harmful police team cultures earlier? Research on peer effects and Operation Hotton suggests forces should test the possibility.
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Evidence & Practice
What is a PSPO, and can it reduce street harassment?
Public Space Protection Orders are being used against sexual harassment in Bradford and London. They make local enforcement possible, but evidence that they reduce harassment remains limited.
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Evidence & Practice
Police intuition: how to test a good copper’s nose
What research explains about police intuition, what remains unproven, and how forces could test judgement by measuring successes and false alarms.
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Evidence & Practice
Self-Selection Policing: What Minor Offences Can Reveal
Self-selection policing uses minor offences as lawful triggers to look for wider criminality. The evidence supports the idea that serious offenders are often offence-versatile; applying the same logic to police misconduct is plausible, but still needs testing.
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Evidence & Practice
Drug policy: where the evidence is strong, and where it is not
Drug policy is often reduced to tougher laws versus legalising drugs. The evidence is clearer than that: treatment for heroin and other opioid dependence has strong support, while the effects of changing drug laws are harder to judge. Here is the evidence in plain English.
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Technology & Innovation
How Worthing Became the 'Shoplifting Capital of the UK'
Commercial crime rankings repeatedly put Worthing at or near the top for shoplifting. The recorded figures were real, but reporting changes, denominator choices and old data materially changed what they could tell us.
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Evidence & Practice
Procedural Justice: The Police Leader’s Guide to Fair Encounters
Procedural justice is one of policing's strongest routes to legitimacy: give people voice, make neutral decisions, show respect and explain trustworthy motives. The evidence supports the approach, but leaders should be precise about what it has — and has not — been shown to change.
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Influential People
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.
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Technology & Innovation
Football and domestic abuse: what the ‘38% rise’ headline leaves out
What studies of England matches reveal about alcohol, timing and recorded domestic abuse, and how police and partners could test their response.
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Influential People
Jason Roach and the Case for Self-Selection Policing
Professor Jason Roach helped develop self-selection policing: using selected minor offences as behaviour-based opportunities to identify wider serious offending. His wider contribution is practical psychology built for police use.
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Influential People
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.
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Influential People
Susanne Knabe-Nicol and Policing’s Research Translation Problem
Dr Susanne Knabe-Nicol built Police Science Dr around a simple problem: useful policing research often fails to reach practitioners in a form they can access and use. Her work is a case study in evidence translation rather than evidence production.
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Influential People
Jerry Ratcliffe and the Case for Intelligence-Led Policing
Former Metropolitan Police officer Jerry Ratcliffe helped turn intelligence-led policing into a practical model: interpret the criminal environment, influence decisions and test whether targeted action changes harm.
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Influential People
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.
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Data Stories
More or Less: Five Habits for Reading Police Statistics
BBC Radio 4's More or Less is useful professional development for anyone working with police data. Five habits matter most: check the denominator, definition, comparison, causal claim and your own instinct to believe the number.
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Leadership & Culture
Henry Nowak Murder: What the Court Found and What the IOPC Is Investigating
The sentencing judge found that Vickrum Digwa murdered Henry Nowak and deceived the officers who arrived at the scene. A separate IOPC investigation has since placed two officers under investigation for potential gross misconduct. Those findings must be kept distinct.
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Evidence & Practice
Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee: Confidence and Crime Need Different Measures
The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee combines named local policing, visible presence and hot-spots patrol. These can support confidence and crime reduction, but the evidence points to different mechanisms and measures for each.
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Evidence & Practice
Police Burnout and Fatigue: What Leaders Can Actually Change
Police wellbeing is not only an individual resilience issue. Organisational stressors, fatigue and poor supervision are associated with worse mental wellbeing and impaired performance. The strongest leadership response is to change working conditions as well as offer support.
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Evidence & Practice
Fuel Theft Is Rising Again. The Police Response Still Does Not Add Up
An industry estimate puts fuel taken without payment at £194,000 a day. The figure needs care, but it exposes a police response that still fails to separate mistakes from repeat theft.
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Evidence & Practice
Neighbourhood Policing Works — When Forces Protect What Makes It Work
The evidence supports neighbourhood policing as a route to higher public confidence, but visibility alone is not enough. The strongest model combines targeted presence, community engagement and problem-solving — and requires forces to protect the capacity to deliver all three.
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