Law enforcement
Research Topic
Language: English
This is a research topic created to provide authors with a place to attach new problem publications.
Research topics above this in the hierarchy
Research problems linked to this topic
- Preventing incidents of violence against officers and staff
- Reducing bureaucracy to lighten demand on front line officers
- What are the reasons for case attrition and what works to avoid it, for different case types? What are the impacts of case attrition on victims, particularly for serious violence and sexual abuse cases?
- Use of canines and alternatives for detection.
- Clothing and equipment for police and first responders with maximum strength, lightness, wearability and protection.
- How can behavioural science be applied to deter, detect, and disrupt terrorists using or targeting transport systems?
- Understanding what the public need to know in relation to local policing activity
- Developing and maintaining an ethical culture in policing
- Understanding what alternative service delivery models are being used elsewhere that contribute to greater financial efficiency and improved policing outcomes
- Better understanding productivity in policing, and how to improve the link between budget spend and policing outcomes
- Understanding what demand for policing services might look like in five and ten years from now
- Increasing the use of analytics within policing
- How effective policing contributes to a city’s economy and business/investment confidence in a city
- Improving victim and witness interactions with the police service, particularly in relation to violent crime and serious sexual offences
- Understanding the cost of crime in London to communities and the public sector
- Improving how we identify and communicate best practice approaches across law enforcement
- Understanding the impact of social media on public confidence and perceptions of police legitimacy
- The ongoing role for ethics in relation to the police application of technological advances
- Improving investigative outcomes and detection rates, particularly in relation to crime with a digital footprint
- Understanding differences in victim satisfaction across London
- Improving the flow of community intelligence to the police
- Understanding how to most effectively operationalise restorative justice approaches
- Reducing the gap in confidence in the police which exists between different communities in London
- Measuring the impact of disruption of organised criminal networks
- Reducing victimisation and repeat victimisation in relation to domestic abuse
- Effectively safeguarding those vulnerable to radicalisation
- Understanding the drivers of homicide and serious violence
- Effectively managing violent offenders who pose a risk to the public
- How can we better meet the needs of those with legal issues to resolve in either the civil or family justice system and the criminal justice system concurrently, for example, domestic abuse victims, victims of fraud, or defendants facing eviction?
- What contributes to effective electronic tagging and monitoring, including GPS and radio frequency trackers, and sobriety tags, in protecting the public from harm? Are there specific groups of individuals for whom electronic tagging and monitoring is more effective?
- How do illicit goods enter the estate and what role do established crime networks play? How effective are measures at preventing and disrupting the supply of drugs and other illicit goods entering the estate and impacts on organised crime more generally?
- How prevalent is repeat victimisation and who does it affect? What is the overlap between being a victim and committing an offence, and how does this vary by, for example, crime type and demographic characteristics?
- How can we define and measure procedural justice and (subjective) fairness? How does this vary by jurisdiction, and protected characteristics?
- How well understood are entitlements under the Victims’ Code, including special measures and access to support services? How effective are these and how could we improve their effectiveness?
- What are the ethical considerations of LawTech and the enhanced usage of technology within the legal sector? What, if any, regulatory framework or guidelines are required to ensure the fair use and application of LawTech?
- How do police activities – such as Release Under Investigation (RUI) – affect flows into the criminal courts?
- How do we best assist early advice and support services to deal with changes in legal need in the population and the demand for services? How do we measure the impact of early advice on short, medium, and longer-term outcomes, and the economic costs and benefits?
- When people seek advice, how do we ensure they find useful and accessible information that empowers them – either towards self-help, or to access the most appropriate services for their needs?
- How do we improve legal awareness and capability in the population, so that people are able to identify they have a legal problem and seek appropriate help?
- How can we minimise the harm to those engaging with the family justice system? What factors affect the effectiveness of Domestic Violence Protection Orders and other measures in the Domestic Abuse Bill?
- Which groups struggle most to resolve their justice problems, either through inaction or difficulty accessing the justice system and wider support services?
- How effective are support structures, for example intermediaries, in facilitating access to justice for vulnerable people, including victims and witnesses?
- Real world threat detection and mitigation capability, ensuring minimal impact on privacy rights. This includes the exploitation of more of the electromagnetic spectrum; compressive sensing; connectivity; use of video analytics; the internet of things; wider use of smart technologies including tracking and remote systems; advanced materials; informatics. ###Threats in the stream of commerce (including people, vehicles, freight, parcels; to detect threats to safety, security, economy, health):
- Approaches that deter people from getting involved in cyber crime, moving deeper into cyber crime and/or reoffending.
- Opportunities and capabilities to intervene and mitigate risks.
- Security in high throughput and heavily populated environments.
- Combating illicit markets.
- Nature and prevalence of links between SOC and drug trafficking / modern slavery Understanding when and where criminal or terrorist behavior is likely to occur, how to deter it, and associated ethical questions.
- Recruitment, progression, well-being and retention in the police and fire workforces.
- Wider role of forensics in crime prevention as well as detection, for example in safeguarding.
- Constructing secure evidential cases against offenders in a changing technological context.
- Understanding the contribution of forensic techniques to the Criminal Justice System, within investigations and in court, including issues such as attrition of cases in the system.
- Monitoring and analysing threats and hazards at incident scenes in real time, including the use of multiple and non-traditional sources such as crowd sourcing and social media.
- Improving speed and accuracy of existing forensic approaches (for example, rapid DNA profile extraction and analysing seized digital media).
- Strengthening the evidence base on the measurement of police productivity and how marginal changes in types of police spend can improve outcomes.
- How can police resources be better tailored to variations in work load?
- Improving understanding of how changes in crime and non-crime demand are affecting how the police respond to incidents.
- Strengthening the evidence base on how the police can increase investigative outcomes and reduce attrition.
- Detecting activity and exposing the identity of the perpetrator, or deterring illegal transactions, without disrupting legitimate commerce.
- Barriers to prosecution and seizure of illicit profits, and approaches to ensuring victims receive adequate financial compensation through civil and criminal routes.
- Effective use by the police, fire and security services.
- Building the what works evidence base for a changing crime landscape.
- How social media can facilitate, monitor and discourage crime and recruitment into organised crime groups.
- Changes in the opportunity structure for crime and in the drivers of the tendency to criminal behaviour, whether social, innate or environmental.
- Increasing the recruitment, retention and progression of high quality staff, particularly those with protected characteristics
- Better understanding the end-to-end value of investment in policing technology
- Preventing offenders from inciting violence and promoting their actions through online channels
- Improving our ability to adopt digital innovations in policing
- Public expectations and trust in relation to the capture and use of data within law enforcement
- Supporting officers to adapt to an investigative processes where they have ownership from initial contact through to resolution
- Making best use of big data to predict events and trends that impact on policing
- Using digital channels to prevent and disrupt crime more effectively
- Maximising opportunities from digital forensics in relation to crime prevention and detection
- Supporting partners and communities to reduce crime and vulnerability
- Improving the quality of interactions between the police and members of the public
- Understanding effective police-led opportunities for crime prevention, with a particular focus on violent crime
- How effective are different prison types, categories and functions, such as reception, training and resettlement, in meeting their core objectives?
- What are the outcomes of receiving legal aid, and how do they vary by the type of service and time at which they were provided? What are the long-term outcomes for those who access and those who do not, but are eligible for legal aid?
- How does LawTech affect the productivity, cost effectiveness, and efficiency of different services and outputs in the legal sector?
- How do geographic, demographic, cultural, and other factors affect people’s ability to resolve their legal problems?
- How sustainable are different types of role within the legal profession and sector? Particularly criminal defence and specialist legal roles such as mental health lawyers?
- How do different individuals and groups perceive their experiences of legal aid services? How does this vary by the nature of their legal problem, advice and support acquired, jurisdiction and outcome?
- Novel methods of predicting/detecting explosive manufacture.
- Technology or techniques to identify prohibited and restricted articles (for example, people, money, drugs, tobacco, counterfeit goods and species that require a permit under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora [CITES]).
- First responder capabilities and approaches to decontamination and recovery.
- Simulants for safe detection equipment testing and canine training Identification of CBRNE materials.
- Research and development relevant to legislative changes, for example the detection of drugs in vehicle drivers and the analysis and understanding of psychoactive substances.
- How can a One Health approach promote a cultural change to curb the expansion of illegal wildlife trafficking and implement solutions that will ultimately benefit humans and the planet, galvanising the role of protected species conservation and biodiversity on disease prevention and mitigation?
- Improving how public complaints and misconduct referrals are dealt with
- Increasing the attractiveness of the Met as a 21st century employer
- Understanding perceptions of organisational justice and fairness in relation to promotion and selection procedures
- What makes an effective pre-sentence report (PSR)? How do PSR’s – including language usage – affect sentence length, type, and consistency? What factors influence the use of PSR’s – including judicial views and confidence – and why has this changed over time?
- How do changes in tariffs, including minimum and maximum sentence lengths or the way life tariffs are calculated, affect sentencing behaviour?
- How can the use of technology support supervision, including remote supervision?
- How are tribunals affected by the policies and services of other government departments, and how can we better understand upstream decision-making processes? For example, regarding welfare policy.
- How can we measure the quality of case outcomes across different jurisdictions, types of cases, and for the individuals and organisations involved? Including whether the court or tribunal was the ‘right’ method of resolution.
- What are the needs and experiences of victims, defence witnesses, and those in distressing civil, family, or tribunal cases? How does this vary by protected characteristics, socio-economic or socio-demographic background and jurisdiction?
- How might technology shape the future requirements of, and services offered by, the legal profession and sector? How can LawTech and innovation support greater access to justice?
- How effective are industry mechanisms and frameworks in ensuring they resolve complaints and meet the wider regulatory needs of the legal services market and profession?
- Where are the notable gaps in the provision of legal advice and support, and how can we best intervene to help fill them? How do different advice and support services interact, share information, and refer individuals between organisations?
- How can we better understand drivers of demand in the justice system, so that we support early problem resolution where appropriate, whilst ensuring the formal justice system is accessible to those who need it?
- What are people’s experiences of dealing with justice problems? How can they be supported to access and navigate the justice system, enforce their rights, and achieve the best outcomes? How does this vary by problem type, level of legal capability, and awareness of support?
- How can we better understand flows into the courts and tribunals system, reasons for entry, and the impact of external organisations and their activities?
- How does case progression, case timeliness, cost-to-access (where appropriate), and eventual outcome vary by jurisdiction and case type? What works, at which stage, and for whom, to improve the efficiency of case progression?