A major experiment introducing proactive policing to Underground platforms finds that short bursts of patrolling create a 'phantom effect': 97% of the resulting crime reduction was during periods when police weren’t actually present.
Cambridge experiment with City of London police found that, while rarely deployed, just the presence of electroshock devices led to greater overall hostility in police-public interactions – an example of what researchers call the ‘weapons effect’.
An open source, 3D-printable microscope that forms the cornerstone of rapid, automated water testing kits for use in low and middle-income countries, has helped a Cambridge researcher and his not-for-profit spin-out company win the top prize in this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards at the University of Cambridge.
Year-long study of almost 2,000 officers across UK and US forces shows introduction of wearable cameras led to a 93% drop in complaints made against police by the public – suggesting the cameras result in behavioural changes that ‘cool down’ potentially volatile encounters.
The results of a major criminology experiment in Peterborough suggest that investing in proactive PCSO foot patrols targeting crime ‘hot spots’ could yield a more than five-to-one return: with every £10 spent saving £56 in prison costs.
Preliminary results from eight UK and US police forces reveal rates of assault against officers are 15% higher when they use body-worn cameras. The latest findings, from one of the largest randomised-controlled trials in criminal justice research, highlight the need for cameras to be kept on and recording at all stages of police-public interaction – not just when an individual officer deems it necessary – if police use-of-force and assaults against police are to be reduced.
As Obama pledges investment in body-worn-camera technology for police officers, researchers say cameras induce ‘self-awareness’ that can prevent unacceptable uses-of-force seen to have tragic consequences in the US over the past year — from New York to Ferguson — but warn that cameras have implications for prosecution and data storage.
Public and government obsession with security is hampering a rational, open debate about prison policy, the former governor of Brixton Prison told a debate at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas last week.
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