The officer who appeared in the Panorama documentary boasting about beating a detainee's legs with his baton made up that account, which didn't happen. He was dismissed without notice. www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metro...

On the abolition of PCCs: I imagine that one of the things this may well do is reduce the impact of party politics on police governance at the sub-national level. Eg there will be much less of a Tory/Labour 'bloc' e.g. on matters of policy.

The counter-cyclical pattern means DA homicides reached 24% of the total in the year to June 2025, approaching historically high levels - a function of rising DA homicides and falling non-DA homicides (latter to v low levels). #crimestats 3/

I thought it was interesting that DA and non-DA homicides have been counter-cyclical over the last decade, and followed v different patterns long-term. 17% of homicides have been DA since 2003, 15% over the past decade. 2/

I had a quick look at homicide trends in London (MPS) having seen this headline. DA homicides have been increasing for 2 years, but nos aren't unusually high - 24 in the year to June v 23.2/yr avg since 2003, 19.3 last decade (these are rolling annual totals). www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/m... 1/

I had a quick look at homicide trends in London (MPS) having seen this headline. DA homicides have been increasing for 2 years, but nos aren't unusually high - 24 in the year to June v 23.2/yr avg since 2003, 19.3 last decade (these are rolling annual totals). www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/m... 1/

Genuine Q, are there prisoners who aren't released when they are supposed to be? If so, are there net more accidental releases, or more accidental non-releases, or do they just cancel each other out? www.bbc.com/news/article...

'England’s children’s commissioner calls for closure of young offender institutions' www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/resource/a-p...

If you want to engage with policing policy and practice, you need to understand that policing is all about managing the trade offs between different risks, and doing so with finite resources where opportunity cost considerations abound.

If you want to engage with policing policy and practice, you need to understand that policing is all about managing the trade offs between different risks, and doing so with finite resources where opportunity cost considerations abound.

LFR is probably the closest you'll get to a policing system with no false positives. In the process it helps secure justice for victims and public protection by enforcing court orders.

Policing is all about managing the trade offs between different risks, and doing so with finite resources where opportunity cost considerations abound.

Looks interesting: "we suggest that the call to ‘defund the police’ may not be the radical alternative that many would have us believe and instead call to ‘refund civil society’ by advocating for a ‘community first’ approach to resolve complex social problems."

Thinking about S&S disproportionality in London and the thought occurs that when volumes bump along at historically low levels as now - c. 10-11k/month - it's v likely most are responding to public reports. Hence, dispro is likely mainly reflective of incoming demand. #stopsearch

There seems to be a widespread view that disproportionality in police contact (S&S, arrests, use of force) is primarily a function of police decision-making & therefore in the gift of policing to solve/resolve.

FWIW, I have elsewhere suggested that police disproportionality should be viewed simultaneously as both a symptom of and a cause (esp historically) of structural inequalities.

...Meanwhile, the contribution of wider structural inequalities to disproportionality in contemporary police contact receives almost zero consideration when disproportionality is discussed.

My original Q was how much disproportionality is caused by police decision making (I didn't say and could have been clearer: today)? It's definitely not zero, and I'm absolutely not suggesting the police don't need to change, but it also isn't 100% (and perhaps it's nowhere near that)....

To me, these suggest a need to address entrenched disadvantage seen across a range of services. Policing has historically had a role in creating those conditions, but the solutions seem to require much wider social and economic reforms.

We see similar (3-5x) rates of disadvantage across a range of socio-economic, health and other indicators (eg mental health act detentions, maternal mortality, homelessness, being reported missing, living in rented social housing, drug dependency, homicide).

Broadly speaking, police data (notably S&S) suggest that decision making at the point of contact is not an important driver of disproportionality, as outcome rates are quite consistent between white and black (typically within 1 or 2pp, ie the bar for reasonable suspicion is applied consistently).

And by implication, if you solved police institutional racism (so debiased all decision making, policies etc) you would still be left with much of the current disproportionality, which policing cannot solve (certainly not on its own).

That much disproportionality in police contact is a function of disproportionality in offending and victimisation (reflecting wider structural disadvantage and often two sides of the same coin), and that institutional decision making likely compounds those external structural differences.

Currently, the heaviest users of S&S by some margin are Merseyside, but no-one is interested in them because with a tiny Black population race isn't the contentious issue it is in London. www.gov.uk/government/s...

How much of the racial disproportionality seen in relation to things like stop and search and arrests is caused by police decision making, and how much is a function of wider structural social inequalities? This relates to where the solutions to disproportionality will be found.

Re the allegation of over-policing and under-protecting, it seems to me a key practical + ethical challenge is how simultaneously to address disproportionate harm and disproportionate vulnerability without compounding - and ideally while ameliorating - structural disadvantage.

It looks like ONS have stopped reporting on the visibility of police foot patrols in the Crime in England and Wales annual supplementary tables - last seen in the March 2023 version. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

Imagine being a victim, witness or suspect in a criminal trial and being told it won't happen for at least 4 years. And what happens in that time to the clarity of everyone's recollection, their trauma, and their energy to see the process to it's proper conclusion? www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/b...

It looks like ONS have stopped reporting on the visibility of police foot patrols in the Crime in England and Wales annual supplementary tables - last seen in the March 2023 version. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

'Almost 30% of people abused as children, England and Wales data shows' #crimestats www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

It's quite a puzzle that this case originally resulted in PC Lathwood being convicted of common assault (overturned on appeal).

The misconduct panel's report in the case of the Croydon bus ticket arrest was published yesterday. This is the summary of the incident.

On an initial skim, this is pretty punchy. There's no agreed approach to measuring productivity and a "limited understanding of what works" to improve it. Meanwhile, "police forces [need] to make significant savings" and the funding formula still hasn't been fixed. www.nao.org.uk/reports/poli...

Looks like the approach of stating race/ethnicity and nationality is going to become the norm for high profile incidents, though I wonder where the line will be drawn in practice. news.sky.com/story/two-pe...

The Metropolitan Police have published an annual report on live facial recognition (LFR). 207 deployments, 962 arrests. 10 false positives from 3.1m faces, 6 spoken to, none arrested. #facialrecognition www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAsset...

The Metropolitan Police have published an annual report on live facial recognition (LFR). 207 deployments, 962 arrests. 10 false positives from 3.1m faces, 6 spoken to, none arrested. #facialrecognition www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAsset...

The report of the misconduct panel in the case of officer W80, who shot and killed Jermaine Baker, has been published. They accepted that W80 had no case to answer. www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metro...

It's also perhaps worth noting that this kind of case, when included in statistics on deaths during or following police contact, will be characterised by some people (whether wilfully or naively) as a death caused by police.

Although there was no apparent impact in this case, members of the public interacting with officers conducting an arrest and search might wish to reflect on the risks of them doing so, including in relation to the importance of searches conducted at the time of arrest.

It's worth reading the Panel's report. Among other details, they found the officers had conducted an appropriate search at the time of arrest (while "many people offer[ed] their opinion and cigarettes among other things") and didn't have a clear view of the detainee in the van.

No finding of misconduct in this death in police custody case, where two officers didn't notice that a detainee had swallowed drugs while being transported to custody, and subsequently died.

I wonder if the inclusion of advertising has any impact on users' trust in the Neighbourhood Alert platform? I'll be honest, my initial reaction on opening this email was not positive.

No finding of misconduct in this death in police custody case, where two officers didn't notice that a detainee had swallowed drugs while being transported to custody, and subsequently died.

When commentators describe every case of child sexual exploitation involving two or more suspects (the IICSA definition of 'group based CSE') as a 'grooming gang', I can't help wondering if they are more concerned with scoring points than improving the response to victims.

Your periodic reminder that individuals and groups do and will continue to seek to use/discredit policing to further their campaigns/interests etc.

The Met Police has started to publish a knife crime bulletin with accompanying data tables. Lots more detail than usual about definitions, crime types, weapon types, outcomes etc. www.met.police.uk/police-force... #knifecrime #crimestats

Good piece arguing that the gross misconduct hearing against W80 should never have been pursued

If you are interested in matters of police use of force, specifically including Taser, I highly recommend reading this Chair's report in the recent misconduct hearing relating to the Taser use against Jordan Walker-Brown in Haringey in 2020. #useofforce www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metro...

If you are interested in matters of police use of force, specifically including Taser, I highly recommend reading this Chair's report in the recent misconduct hearing relating to the Taser use against Jordan Walker-Brown in Haringey in 2020. #useofforce www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metro...

I missed this news yesterday - a written warning after more than 2 years of criminal and misconduct processes www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...