Opinion: Tales from the beat - Reflections on 40 years of policing research

I still vividly remember the first time I climbed into the back of a police patrol car and headed out on to the streets of central London on a warm September evening for the beginning of an eight-hour shift.

This was the mid-1980s with London still coming to terms with the riots that had occurred a few years earlier involving violent clashes between police and communities in neighbourhoods across the capital.

I was in the early stages of doing a PhD examining how attempts to build greater trust between police and local people were playing out on the ground. As part of that research, I had written to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to ask whether it would be possible to spend time with officers on the street so that I could experience policing first hand, to which he readily agreed, and now I was spending the next few months shadowing community and response cops in two areas of London.

From that first experience of doing policing research, I have spent the rest of my academic career studying different aspects of policing in the UK and internationally. This has included assessing the role of witness protection measures in facilitating organised crime investigations; evaluating models of community policing; understanding the processes and challenges of police responses to reports of missing persons; and more recently, leading a four-year evaluation of police reform in Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government.

Reflecting on this work a number of things stand out for me. First, from that first project in London I have always felt the importance of not only carrying out research on the police but also with the police. This ensures that the voices of officers are heard and that they have the opportunity to inform the research questions, so they are relevant to the challenges that they face.

Second, policing is extraordinarily complex and exists in a world of ever-changing demands and priorities. From a research perspective, it can never be understood from one disciplinary standpoint. The Scottish Institute for Policing Research, a pioneering partnership between universities and Scottish policing, of which I was the founding Director, brought together criminologists and computer scientists, psychologists and historians, and forensic scientists and management specialists. We all collaborated on projects designed to build a strong evidence-base to inform policing policy and practice.

This feeds into my third point. As academics, we need to address how we co-produce and connect research evidence to the work of policy makers and practitioners in ways which can improve services for wider societal benefit. We need to engage our students in ways which will inspire them to have the curiosity to want to understand the world better.

When I began research no one talked about the ‘impact agenda’, but for me a key motivation has been to identify ways in which knowledge generated by research can be part of the conversation about how we drive improvements in policing, and to use that knowledge in my teaching to inspire the next generation of police practitioners and scholars.

With RGU now delivering a new programme in Criminology, we want to harness the curiosity of students in policing and the wider criminal justice system through an innovative course that combines legal and forensic education within a sociological framework, offering students the chance to apply theory in creative ways outside of the classroom.

Returning to that first shift in a patrol car in London, it was a fascinating experience that introduced me to the kaleidoscopic variety of police work with all its challenges, complexity, excitement, danger, and rewards. I was hooked, and it’s no surprise that I have now gone on to enjoy 40 years of researching and teaching about policing.

By Professor Nick Fyfe, Vice Principal for Research and Community Engagement

Tales from the Beat with Professor Nick Fyfe is at Cowdray Hall, Aberdeen on Thursday 20 February as part of the Granite Noir festival. For tickets, visit: