Researchers devise an audit tool to test whether police use of facial recognition poses a threat to fundamental human rights, and analyse three deployments of the technology by British forces – with all three failing to meet “minimum ethical and legal standards”.
Rates of PTSD in the police service revealed as close to five times higher than in the UK population. Cambridge researchers and a policing charity are calling for “national mental health strategy” in UK law enforcement.
Police at the “front line” of difficult risk-based judgements are trialling an AI system trained by University of Cambridge criminologists to give guidance using the outcomes of five years of criminal histories.
Poor access to health care and confusion over post-detention care may have contributed to more than 400 deaths following police custody and prison detention since 2009, a new report has claimed. Here, in an article first published on The Conversation, report authors Loraine Gelsthorpe and Nicola Padfield of Cambridge's Faculty of Law, along with their colleague Jake Phillips from Sheffield Hallam University, discuss their findings.
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.
New Cambridge ‘crime harm index’ published today quantifies true cost of crime: damage caused to victims and society. Experts call on UK government to adopt low-cost metric for greater transparency of crime trends and risks. Some UK forces have already used approach with early successes in identifying ‘harm spots’.
Cambridge criminologist tells White House task force that translating UK models of policing to US is the best hope in a generation for tackling dangerous rates of ‘justifiable’ homicides committed by US police, and the resultant haemorrhaging of police legitimacy across the nation.
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.
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