The N8 PRP 2023 Small Grants will explore gendered violence, drug markets and repeat sexual offenders.

N8 Policing Research Partnership has announced that four Small Grants have been funded, with research due to start in January 2023.

Small Grants foster innovative ideas and collaborative research to generate new resources for N8 PRP partners, supporting the development of policing research and evidence-based policing.

This year, there was a call for one-page proposals from police and academics, which were then shortlisted and presented at a Collaboration Workshop. This meant that innovative ideas were welcomed from across both sectors, projects could find new partners, and applications for the next round of funding were collaborative from the earliest stages.

All of the projects that have been funded are in collaboration with police partners, who will be contributing data, interviews, and access to records, and all will take part in project Advisory Groups. These groups will discuss the ongoing development of the projects. This will allow researchers to take advantage of the wide range of expertise and experience available in the forces, and increase the opportunities for impact on police operations.

In total £96,855 has been awarded to the four research projects:

Harassment of Female Runners

University of Manchester, Greater Manchester Police and Merseyside Police

Dr Caroline Miles, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, and Dr Rose Broad, Lecturer in Criminology, both at the University of Manchester – will focus on female runners’ experiences of abuse, including ‘low-level’ verbal abuse, cat-calling, flashing, serious violent/sexual assaults, and the barriers to systematic reporting of abuse, which can empower women to engage in making public spaces safer. This will build on ideas shared at the N8 PRP’s Policing Innovation Forum in June on VAWG (Violence Against Women and Girls) in public places by keynote speaker Fiona Vera-Gray.

Policing Drug Markets

University of Sheffield, South Yorkshire Police, Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit

Tackling the illegal drugs trade is a priority of the Government’s (2021) Beating Crime plan, in large part because homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime are driven by drugs. Policing drug markets is also a key element of the Government’s (2021) ten-year drug strategy, which proposes an ‘end-to-end’ plan targeted at all levels of the supply chain. Yet, despite its salience in politics, policy and practice, research on drugs policing is surprisingly sparse and underdeveloped. This study, led by Dr Matthew Bacon with Co-I Dr Xavier L’Hoiry, both senior lecturers in Criminology at the University of Sheffield, will therefore explore drugs policing with the precision it requires and will aim to shape academic debate relating to drugs, policing and harm reduction and significantly impact practice on drugs policing.

Racially Minoritised Victims of Domestic Abuse and Outcome 16

Newcastle University, Durham University, Uni of Northumbria; Merseyside Police, West Yorkshire Police, Durham Police

This project is a direct result of the Collaboration Workshop and features two N8 universities. Following the findings of a major recent Open University study on Outcome 16, which is when a victim does not support further action against an identified suspect, Principal investigator Dr Hayley Alderson, Senior Research Fellow at Newcastle University, with Co-Is Dr Ruth McGovern, Ms Kausiki Sarma (Newcastle University), Dr Geetanjali Gangoli (Durham University), Dr William McGovern and Dr Nikki D’Souza (Northumbria University), will explore one of the findings of this study, which was a need to understand the specific context of Outcome 16 for racially minoritised victims of domestic abuse.

Risk and Recidivism of Sexual Offenders

University of Manchester and Greater Manchester Police

This Small Grant led by Dr Sandra Flynn, Lecturer in Psychology and Mental Health, with Co-Is Dr Polly Turner and Dr Verity Wainwright at the University of Manchester, will examine the sexual offending patterns of registered sexual offenders in Greater Manchester, to understand risk and recidivism between online and contact offenders. The initial proposal came from the police and the study has the potential for significant impact for the efficiency of police resources in managing registered sexual offenders.

Professor Geoff Pearson, Academic Director, N8 Policing Research Partnership, said:

“I’m delighted that N8 PRP has been able to fund four collaborative projects in this year’s round of Small Grants. These are all exciting and innovative projects which we anticipate will drive forward academic knowledge and also have a positive impact upon police policy and practice.”

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