Offender Management: Checkpoint Programme

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for this debate. Because of the short time limit, my speech will mostly be a set of questions to the Minister.

I am not sure whether the Minister is aware of a new strand of police research called evidence-based policing—EBP for short—the brainchild of Professor Larry Sherman, who was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, at the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge. Is he aware of the Cambridge Centre for Evidence-Based Policing? I draw attention to my registered interests, because I lecture on its behalf here and abroad.

Evidence-based policing is based on the use of randomised control trials modelled on medical research techniques. I am sure the Minister is aware that Check- point is an EBP randomised control trial, but is he aware that it is only one of a large number of such experiments in the UK influenced by, and part of, the Cambridge EBP centre’s master’s degree programme? Randomised control experiments have, for instance, proved that police body cameras reduce conflict, that specific patrol patterns can reduce crime in hot spots and that issuing tasers to whole shifts of police officers does not improve citizen or police safety. The biggest gain in knowledge so far is the Cambridge crime harm index, which proved that in Northamptonshire 80% of harm caused by crime was the work of 7% of offenders.

Is the Minister aware of the UK Society of Evidence Based Policing, which is now replicated in many countries? Is he aware that Peter Neyroud—formerly chief constable of Thames Valley Police and now Professor Sherman’s academic colleague—recently explained evidence-based policing to a meeting of chiefs of police in India, which was chaired by Prime Minister Modi, who directed that the technique be adopted on a pan-India basis?

Is the Minister aware of how much interest in or support for this work has been shown by Her Majesty’s Government? The answer is practically none—and there has been almost nothing from Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition either, with the honourable exception of David Lammy MP, who noted the effectiveness of the West Midlands scheme Turning Point, which has just been mentioned, with black and Asian victims. This technique proves what works to reduce crime and, equally importantly, what does not. I have never seen anything as exciting as this in my police career.

The Home Secretary has indicated this week that nationwide targets for crime reduction will be reintroduced. They had a detrimental and distorting effect when they were in place. The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice should be aware of what really does reduce crime before such targets re-emerge, so my last question to the Minister is: is he prepared to meet me, Professor Sherman and Peter Neyroud, preferably with the Police Minister, to see how this British invention can best be nurtured? Of course, I would be delighted if the noble Lord, Lord Bates, wished to join us.