Database brings together decades of policing research

A new resource designed to highlight the “breadth and depth” of modern policing and crime analysis and developing global professional policing practice has been launched.

Created by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) at the University of Queensland, Australia, the Global Policing Database (GPD) is a searchable online bank of information for policing practitioners and academics covering the whole spectrum of policing and community safety analysis.

Once complete it will contain every study of policing interventions, tactics and successes conducted around the world since 1950.

The GPD, which is funded through the College of Policing Innovation Fund and the Australian Research Council, currently holds information from 2014 and 2015 and will be updated twice a year. It will eventually hold up to 5,000 case studies.

Examples of the research include: links between working structures and use of force by police officers; how flash and siren combinations influence the way people behave in emergency situations; and how restorative justice meetings have been found to help reduce post-traumatic stress in victims of crime.

Head of evidence and insight at MOPAC, Professor Betsy Stanko, said the GPD represents an “important milestone for evidence-based policing”.

“Over the last year we have pioneered the use of technology to open up comprehensive policing and crime data to the public in an accessible way via our interactive dashboards,” she said. “Now the GPD is beginning to open up decades of academic research into policing and community safety to practitioners and researchers around the world.”

College of Policing lead for knowledge, research and practice, Nerys Thomas, said the scheme would complement the What Works Centre for Crime Reduction.

Visit www.gpd.uq.edu.au