Police should focus on improving their interactions with the public in order to restore public confidence in police, ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre Co-Director Professor Adam Crawford told police chiefs and police and crime commissioners today.
Tuesday 19 November
Speaking at the APCC NPCC Partnership Summit, attended by the Home Secretary, police and crime commissioners and police chiefs across the UK, Professor Crawford, from the University of York and University of Leeds, shared findings from the Centre’s new report “Do people think police are meeting minimum standards of service delivery?”.
The report reveals that police services across Britain are failing to meet the public’s minimum standards of service delivery. The research team sought the views of members of the public across Britain to establish the minimum standards of service that the public should be able to expect from the police. Members of the public feel very strongly that, as a desired minimum, police should be responsive, fair and respectful, as well as engaged and visibly present within communities.
Focus groups identified three domains of expectations they have of police:
- The first comprises a host of measures related to Response: the way police respond to calls for service, follow up, and address crime.
- The second concern Behaviour and Treatment: the ways officers and the police organisation treat individuals and communities.
- The third domain covers the visibility, Presence and Engagement of police in neighbourhoods.
Following this, the research team surveyed 1,484 people and found that only 30% or less of respondents were confident that police:
- are transparent about their decision making;
- prioritise the crimes most affecting their communities; and
- provide adequate follow-up after crimes have been committed.
Professor Crawford spoke about these findings and revealed that while recent high-profile events have eroded trust and confidence, the everyday policing that people experience in their local communities is crucial for retaining it.
“While recent high-profile events have clearly damaged trust and confidence, at least as important is the everyday policing that people experience in their local communities,” said Professor Crawford.
“Current efforts to reverse declining confidence in policing stress: internal reform, greater efforts to fight crime, and revitalising neighbourhood policing. Though all are important, our research suggests that the last of these is likely be most vital.”
He stressed that for the police to regain trust, they must meet these minimum policing standards and improve the quality of interactions with the public. He also noted the opportunities and challenges the current police workforce face in doing this.
“Given the importance of the quality of neighbourhood police-public interactions, our findings present both an opportunity and a challenge for policing, bearing in mind the current (historically unique) police workforce demographics,” said Professor Crawford.
“In light of the recent uplift in officer numbers after years of decline, we now have a police workforce that is both very inexperienced and young – at the end of March this year, more that one third (35.5%) of police had less than five years’ service. This places considerable emphasis and stress on young and relatively inexperienced officers to deliver high quality interactions and a minimum policing standard of service.
“The opportunity lies in the potential that new recruits may be eminently well equipped to this task, embrace its implications and are less encumbered by a culture of the ‘police knowing best’ or business as usual. The challenge resides in the possibility that they may not have the appropriate social, soft-procedural and problem-solving skills necessary to ensure that standards are met in all instances, which as a result may set public confidence and trust in policing further back.”
Concluding his speech, Professor Crawford said:
“If police attend to a minimum standard in their neighbourhood policing interactions with the public in ways that engender trust and confidence, then members of the public will be more likely to trust police to do other activities well and in procedurally fair ways and view the police as a trustworthy organisation.”
The APCC NPCC Partnership Summit 2024 takes place from 19-20 November 2024 in Westminster.