News & Blogs

A new paper on the policing of mobile phone use by drivers is to be published in The Police Journal. The paper, which was written by Prof Gemma Briggs (OU), Dr Leanne Savigar-Shaw (University of Staffordshire) and Dr Helen Wells (Keele University) focuses on police officer interactions with mobile phone offenders.

The Steven Chase Memorial Award was a fitting end to the first day of the recent conference on campus in Milton Keynes. Named in honour of Steven Chase, the Centre’s co-founder and its first Chair, this recognises the excellent work undertaken by CPRL member forces and OU academics, working together to conduct research and to put knowledge into practice.

The Centre celebrated its 10th anniversary with a two-day conference in November on the theme of “Retention and Prevention”, which has often been highlighted as a very important topic by members.

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our first CPRL Small Grants Scheme. Launched earlier this year, the scheme aimed to tap into the innovative thinking within police forces to address pressing challenges facing UK policing. Open to all CPRL member forces, the scheme encouraged new engagement opportunities with CPRL, focusing on research, learning, knowledge into practice, and education.

The kidnap, rape, and murder of a young woman in London (March, 2021) saw an outpouring of anger, sorrow and concern about the precarious state of women’s safety. This response was further intensified when it emerged that the crime was perpetrated by a serving Metropolitan (Met) police officer, Wayne Couzens, who had used his warrant card and handcuffs to commit the offence. This incident was not long followed by the conviction of another officer (David Carrick) for a long series of sexual offences committed against twelve women over two decades (BBC, 2023).

On 18 June our very own Drs SJ Lennie and Keely Duddin, together with Dr Krystal Wilkinson (Manchester Metropolitan University), pictured here on the left with SJ, received an award from the Greater Manchester Police Association for Women in Policing for their Services to Women in Policing in recognition of their research into Perinatal Mental Health and Police Life. 

Blog post by Clare Rawdin on the advocacy support service for survivors of PPDA, referred to as Tabw, where both victim-survivors (and suspects) are serving police personnel within two forces.

This annual report features a selection of the work undertaken across 2023 which we consider to be highly relevant for the current policing environment. We have developed core specialisms in areas such as police professionalism, learning and development, violence against women and girls, police wellbeing and demand management to name but a few.

The new Openlearn Policing Practice and Leadership Hub is now fully available for members to use. Openlearn is our learning platform that offers open access free learning resources. 

These resources range from short articles & podcasts through to structured online courses that typically take 2-6 hours to complete.

2024 marks 10 years of Policing at the OU, including the launch of the Centre for Policing Research and Learning.

To celebrate the many achievements in research, partnership, learning, education and knowledge into practice, CPRL are having an exciting schedule of online and in- person events throughout the year.