Is Policing Doctrine Evidence Based In Its Approach To Improving Policing? (2012)

Policing Doctrine UK Police Officers Dissertation – This research examined the approach taken by the United Kingdom (UK) police for the formulation and implementation of ‘best practice’ doctrine and policies for police officers. The research will analyse how much of this doctrine, its codes of practice, briefing papers, advice notes and regulations are based on real life evidence or control trial-based.

So far no research has investigated the foundations of the abundance of doctrine produced and implemented every year on the duties of the police officers (Bullock and Tilley, 2003). The policy makers, or the people who make the policing doctrine, have no idea whether the policies they make and implement on the police are helping to reduce crime or causing further harm (Sherman and Eck, 2002). The goal of this research is to increase the literature on evidence based policies.

This research analysed a random sample of policies from police doctrine. Through the use of exploratory analysis, and with the help of mixed methodology, it has brought attention to the amount of evidence being used or not being used in operational police practices. This subject matter will have evident and practical implications, as the current state of the UK Police needs to be addressed.

According to Flanagan (2008), the Chief Inspector of Constabulary Policing quoted that the UK Policing is “a slave to doctrine and straitjacketed by process”. Dissertation aims and objectives:

1. To review the available literature on the policy making approach for policing in the UK
2. To assess whether the current policing doctrine is based on evidence or on experiential learning
3. To identify and appraise the need to implement evidence based policing policies in terms of their impact upon the performance of the UK Police
4. To analyse and suggest feasible ways through which the UK policing doctrine could be improved by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in the UK so as to increase the performance of the UK police.

• 14,000 words – 50 pages in length
• Good use of literature
• Good analysis of subject area
• Well written throughout
• Ideal for sociology students

1 – Introduction
Aims and objectives
Research questions
Background information
Statement of the problem
Importance of the research
Scope of the research
Limitations of the research
Summary

2 – Literature Review
Search Strategy
Evidence-Based Policy
Evidence-Based Policing
Intelligence-Led Policing
Is the British Policing Doctrine evidence based?
Police Research in Past 20 Years
Role of Police in Preventing Crime
Use of Evidence-Based Policing to Decrease Crimes
Conclusion

3 – Methodology
The Mixed Research Paradigm
Issues in Integrating Approaches
Content Analysis Study
Summary

4 – Qualitative Analysis
Practice Advice on Police Use of Digital Images

5 – Quantitative Analysis
The Minneapolis domestic violence experiment
Guidance on Investigating Domestic Abuse

6 – Results
Mixing the Data
Qualitative Analysis Findings
Quantitative Analysis Findings
Generalisation of the results

7 – Discussions

8 – Conclusion and Recommendations
Conclusion
Linking the Empirical Data to the Research Aims and Objectives
Objectives
Recommendations
Summary

References

Appendices