EVIDENCE BASED POLICING
PUSHING FOR PRACTICAL CHANGE
The Society of Evidence Based Policing’s work has become more important than ever as police budgets are under increasing strain
From their very first day as a probationer, every police officer is taught to recognise the value of evidence as a fundamental component of the job. Evidence defines a way of understanding how policing can improve, and what we should stop and start doing.
The Society of Evidence Based Policing uses, produces, and communicates best available evidence with the aim of putting structured learning at the heart
“The crux is to look at why crime happens and why crime doesn’t happen”
of decision-making. Its membership consists of police officers, staff, and research professionals who strive to improve policing from within by using the best research evidence. It seeks to provide tried-and-tested
practical solutions to police-related issues and certainly is not just an academic think tank. The long-term goal is to make evidence-based methodology part of everyday policing all over the UK. The Society aims to reach this goal by raising awareness of the value of evidence-based practice, providing access to research tools and guidance, advocating evidence-based practice across all policing bodies and offering a forum for police professional researchers. With reduced budgets and increased pressure on forces to be visibly seen to deliver results, Metropolitan Police Commander and society founder Alex Murray believes it is more critical than ever that policy and operational decisions are informed and underpinned by the best available evidence. “Every colleague of every rank has been
in positions where we’ve heard a leader in policing say crime has gone down in an area because of their great leadership, but inside they know it is a questionable assertion,” said Commander Murray. “Evidence based policing would provide an answer to this, as it aims to understand what we have done and what those actions caused. “The crux is to look
at why crime happens and why crime doesn’t happen. Why does it affect some people and doesn’t affect others?” he asked.
“In other words, it involves
answering the question ‘how do I understand whether what I’m doing as a police officer makes a real difference or not?” Commander Murray points to the world of medicine where doctors constantly experiment with different approaches to find what works. He wants policing to do more of the same and believes this approach is intrinsic to delivering the policing mission. He added: “You can learn the law and then exercise the law. But as we all know, policing is so much more than that and the success of policing is the absence of crime – not just solely the evidence of detecting it.” Valuable though experience and intuition
are to colleagues, Commander Murray – also the Met’s lead for violence in London – advocates that the craft of everyday policing must increasingly be coupled
Alex Murray
with a more scientific method, rather than relying on instinctive and subjective decisions about what may be working. Trustee and Chief Inspector Ben
Linton, a member of the Met’s Strategy and Insight Unit, said: “Without good evidence everything is about opinion. In policing things often go in cycles, so we do tend to do something 10 years ago and then change it, and then we might go back to what we did 20 years ago.”
Membership of the society is free and open to any member of police staff or researcher who is committed to making a positive impact and wishes to learn from other practitioners.
www.sebp.police.uk
27 | POLICE | FEBRUARY 2022
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