Today mark‘s the 200th anniversary of the founding of UCL, London’s first university. Apparently, right from the start UCL was looked down on by some for being too egalitarian, because we admitted (male) students regardless of religion or background!

One absurdity of the 43-force police structure: the investigation of Mandelson is done by the Met because he was probably in London when he emailed Epstein, while the investigation of Andrew is by Thames Valley because he was in probably in Berks when he did the same. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Very interesting blog post on how the lack of a coherent approach to the police workforce is hurting police productivity (with some especially jaw-dropping numbers on the financial cost of police disciplinary investigations very-often being far too slow). leapwiseadvisory.com/current-poli...

One advantage of the wet weather: waterfalls currently look amazing! 📍@nationaltrust.org.uk Aira Force

If you can spare 2 minutes for a survey on street lighting and perceptions of safety, I have a student who would be very grateful! 👍 qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_...

If you can spare 2 minutes for a survey on street lighting and perceptions of safety, I have a student who would be very grateful! 👍 qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_...

Spring!

Homicide is often made more likely by 'enhancers' such as drugs, alcohol, mental health or the involvement of street gangs. This thread summarises what we know about factors that make homicide more likely. 🧵

The most-common victim of homicide a young man killed during a brawl. But what about child homicide, elder abuse and domestic abuse? This thread summarises what we know about homicide vulnerability for those specific groups in society. 🧵

Law is not magic, and prohibitions are not spells. All a prohibition does is to change the legal and other consequences when a prohibited thing happens. Some prohibitions make sense, others make no sense at all.

Just bizarre to me that there is such a large market for "AI will go away on its own" at this stage. And that so few people who serve that market seem to have updated their beliefs at all in the past year, even as key tasks like coding have already started to change beyond recognition.

The weirdest conspiracy theory of all is that 15 minute city thing. Why would anyone not want 15 minute cities? I mean you can still live in the countryside if you want but all villages, towns and cities should have amenities within 15 mins.

Are any forces doing this? It sounds like a useful bit of strategic analysis.

Data sciencey people — if you haven’t tried Positron, I highly, highly recommend giving it a whirl.

A good example of how many public debates about violence don’t match reality: Women in England and Wales are more than 10 times more likely to be killed in a dwelling by a partner/relative/friend than outside the home by a stranger.

Homicide (like all types of crime) is heavily concentrated in a small number of places – half of all homicides in England and Wales happen in six police-force areas. But where are different types of homicide most concentrated? 🧵

England and Wales has a much lower firearms homicide rate than in most large European countries, Australia and Canada. And obviously a vastly lower rate of firearms homicide than in the US. (Also: no, we don’t have more knife homicides than they do, either.)

People living in England and Wales are much less likely to be victims of theft than in the 1990s— Several data sources show that theft in England and Wales has declined in recent decades. One of those is police records — but they only capture reported crimes, and many people don’t report thefts.

An excellent article pointing out some of the issues with the government’s (generally good) police reforms. For me, most important point: the reforms will likely only work for local communities if they manage to combine strong local operational independence with greater back office centralisation.

Every year about 600 people are killed in homicides in England and Wales. But how are people killed, and how does it vary for victims in different groups? This thread summarises what we know about how often different methods are used in homicides. 🧵

Homicide offenders are almost always men. But homicide offending is concentrated in other ways, too: while unemployed White men aged 20–49 make up less than 1% of the population but more than a quarter of all homicide offenders.

Each year about 730 people are charged with a homicide offence in England and Wales. But who are they? This thread summarises what we know about who commits homicides and in what circumstances. 🧵

Black teenage boys are 13 times more likely to be killed in a homicide in England and Wales than White boys of the same age.

Each week, about 12 people are killed in homicides in England and Wales. But who is most likely to be killed? This thread summarises what we know about who is most likely to be a victim of homicide. 🧵

The homicide rate in England and Wales is about one fifth of the global average, and about one third of the average for high-income countries. The US homicide rate is six times higher than ours.

England and Wales currently have some of their lowest homicide rates since the 1970s:

We're consumed by stories of murder, but how much do you know about homicide in England and Wales? Every day this week I'm going to post a thread summarising a different aspect of what data can tell us about the nature of homicide. 🧵

It's curious how often you see references to public confidence in policing having fallen and low level crime being under-policed, with no mention of the role of austerity (which continues in the form of ongoing savings being needed).

“People worry about their position in league tables as opposed to the quality of service. What gets measured gets done, and what does not get measured does not get done.” Another chief said: “You can hit the target and miss the point.”

There's lots to unpack in this article, with further details of what will be in the policing white paper next week... www.lbc.co.uk/article/mini...

All three statements are true at the same time—

Good summary by @dannyshaw.bsky.social of Home Office plans to reform the structure of policing in England and Wales. Most of these reforms are sorely needed and long overdue, but the government’s plan to only implement them after the next election means they may well not happen at all.

The best way of describing someone who’s all talk and no action that I’ve ever heard in the UK, by far, is “they’re all wardrobe and no Narnia.” * read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)

Apparently, after having lived in England my entire life, my English is still not good enough to be able to consistently spell the word 'acquaintance' correctly. This is especially annoying this week, since I'm writing a paper which needs the word 'acquaintance' about once every three sentences. 😠

Having a great day, only slightly spoiled by a friend telling me in a very happy tone “just think, you’re halfway to being 90”! 😳

"use the full length of the platform" is not an instruction you can personally put into practice, unless you are an anaconda, in which case you should not be on the piccadilly line for other reasons

Interesting survey on what people (🇺🇸) think should disqualify people from joining the police (eg hard drug use, schizophrenia, violent/sexual convictions) and what shouldn’t (eg marijuana/steroid use, ADHD, anxiety, depression, minor convictions).

People posting hate speech on social media were more likely to recant/apologise if other users posted replies evoking empathy for the victim, compared to replies attacking the person posting or trying to rebut their hate speech with facts.

Interesting study finding that 'out of the blue' career-ending misconduct by previously unproblematic officers (🇬🇧) couldn't reliably be predicted using demographic or career factors (e.g. duty type, transfer frequency), or previous unsubstantiated complaints. doi.org/10.1177/1098...

This study tries to see if large language models can make prison release decisions (spoiler: they can’t). Maybe I’ve missed something, but I don’t see how this paper got published. LLMs are designed to generate text, not make binary decisions. … doi.org/10.1177/0887...

Fascinating new study on what factors influence whether people (🇬🇧) call (or don't call) police to incidents where it's ambiguous whether police would be the best agency to respond. I'm not going to try to summarise the (complex) results here, but read the article! doi.org/10.1093/bjc/...

Do you explore intersections between digitalization and geography of crime? @asiermoneva.com, Wim Bernasco and I look forward to your contribution to our guest-edited special issue “The Geography of Crime in the Digital Era”. See call for papers (www.sciencedirect.com/journal/jour...). Please share.

'London’s homicide rate drops to lowest in more than a decade' www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

After accounting for other factors, suspects (🇺🇸) were *less* likely to be injured during police use of force if taser was used or if the officer was more experienced. Suspects were *more* likely to be injured when officers attempted 'soft-hand' tactics like wrist locks. doi.org/10.1177/0032...

I'm sure someone else has suggested this, but it's time for mandatory DOIs in reference lists. This will make it easier to identify hallucinated references

Police officers (🇦🇺) feel body-worn video from responding officers improves the quality of evidence in domestic-abuse cases, but victims tend to be concerned about how the recordings will be used and whether cameras properly capture non-physical abuse. www.crimrxiv.com/pub/a5qwz2er

Useful review of existing evidence on how police can effectively manage missing person cases. Should be a useful starting place if you're working in this area, either as a practitioner or researcher. doi.org/10.1177/0032...

New review of evidence finds the most-effective police crime prevention tends to be: a) focused on very specific places (not people or neighbourhoods), and b) tailored to preventing a *specific* type of crime. ⚠️ Broad-brush crime prevention generally doesn't work. doi.org/10.1007/s112...

AI-generated feedback on police body-worn video recordings (🇺🇸) halved the likelihood of unprofessional behaviour during encounters in one agency, but not in a second. The results were similar whether the feedback was delivered directly or via a supervisor. doi.org/10.1111/1745...