Highlights from the National Evidence Based Policing Conference 2025

In an era of tightening resources and negative headlines, positive stories about policing are few and far between. But at this year’s National Evidence Based Policing Conference they were there in abundance.

The two-day event brought together those tackling the wicked problems facing policing – demand outstripping resources, falling victim satisfaction, the epidemic of violence against women and girls, poor police morale – and showed there are solutions if you follow the evidence.

This year’s conference, presented by the Society of Evidence Based Policing (SEBP) and the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) took place at the shiny new campus of the University of Huddersfield. Speakers showcased the best of Yorkshire talent while showing that evidence comes in all different shapes and sizes and what really matters is finding and following it.

Take PC John Porter, from South Yorkshire Police, who pioneered the use of a simple GPS device to help families find loved ones with dementia who go wandering. He at first faced misunderstanding, but with the help of a human rights lawyer, managed to convince his force to give him £10,000 for a 12-month pilot. Working with Sgt Ben Hanson, he gave the GPS device to the families of 50 people who had gone missing before. The GPS tracker reduced missing episodes from 84 in the previous year to one. They then teamed up with Professor Mike Doyle of Huddersfield University to develop a further trial in which devices were given to people with dementia who were newly diagnosed. In this group no one went missing, and the force saved £300,000 from not having to mobilise to find people.

Or Chief Inspector Dan Hayes who showcased West Yorkshire Police’s solution to the problem that the main screening tool used to decide which domestic abuse victims get urgent support "doesn't work".  For want of a better alternative, the domestic abuse, stalking and honour-based abuse risk checklist (DASH) is being used to predict future harm even though it is not designed for the task. CI Hayes explained how, to better safeguard victims, West Yorkshire has designed an actuarial algorithmic tool. This pulls all relevant information together to predict the likelihood of future crimes occurring as well as their potential severity. Early tests showed it outperformed Dash in predicting repeat incidents in low and high-risk domestic abuse cases. The algorithm is now being piloted in Leeds in a randomised controlled trial, and early results are promising.

The conference heard about another cutting-edge tool developed in collaboration between police forces and academics. Professor Andy Newton of Nottingham Trent University and Amanda Johnson of Essex Emergency Services Collaboration shared the pioneering work of Project Minerva, a data driven solution to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG). Their statistical mapping tool identifies high-risk public places for violence against women and girls in Essex. It then uses open-source data to show what influenced victimisation at the local level, before predicting where further incidents could occur. The tool showed an increased risk of VAWG outside colleges and secondary schools. Armed with this information, the police force could not only deploy officers in the right places at the right times, but work with schools and women and girls to develop the interventions, such as better lighting and more attractive street furniture, they said would help them feel safer.

But the best evidence and most effective tools will not work if the police officers using them are struggling with health problems or poor morale. Police officers are expected to perform well under immense pressure, yet as Dr Simon Baldwin of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the conference, they can only do so if they have the right training. His experiment first attached sensors to officers attending incidents to measure their heart rate. He found that even before they got out of their cars officers’ heart rates were at 170 bpm (the equivalent of a fast sprint). As well as leading to increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, such high stress levels can trigger poor decision making. After conducting a live simulation (in which some officers were so panicked they “shot” a suicidal man) he found that the right training didn’t reduce officers heart rates but did enable them to better perform under intense pressure.

Other research highlighted a major cause of low police officer morale, and how a lot could be achieved by issuing looser uniform trousers. In a presentation called “It’s tough to tackle crooks when your tackle’s crooked” Dr Camilla De Camargo and Dr Stephanie Wallace from Lancaster University shared the results of the National Uniform Survey. They showed that not only do most officers believe that the uniform is uncomfortable and impractical, 63 per cent of male officers and 85 percent of female feel too tight trousers and ill-designed stab vests have harmed their physical health. They argued that designing uniform that is fit for purpose could make officers more effective, could reduce poor morale and increase public trust.

But as Detective Superintendent David Cowan of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidence Based Policing pointed out, although you may have evidence showing what needs to change, converting this evidence to policy change on the ground is hard. Giving the example of the Royal Navy who took 50 years to introduce citrus fruit on ships after James Lind discovered it prevented scurvy, he told the conference that in many cases EBP challenges status quo, which creates resistance. But with persistence and well-designed experiments, and with the right leadership, the trials and tribulations can be overcome.  

As always at the end of the conference, SEBP COO Dr Matt Bland and Chair Al Murray left delegates with a challenge to digest what they’ve learned at the conference and use it. So that next year, when they return delegates can demonstrate what changes they’ve made using the best available evidence.

Slide decks and videos from the conference are now available on the SEBP Members' Hub.