Events

In this webinar, Emma Tuschick (Teesside University) will present the key findings and recommendations from a new review into suicide prevention for people under investigation for sexual offences.

Emma will be joined by Katy Turner, Suicide Prevention Coordinator for Northumbria Police, and Professor Catherine Robinson, University of Manchester, to discuss the implications of the review for police practice, cross-agency working, and suicide prevention policy.

People arrested or under investigation for sexual offences face an exceptionally high risk of suicide, particularly in the earliest stages of criminal justice contact. Despite this, prevention responses during the pre-conviction period are often inconsistent, overly procedural, or reliant on approaches that struggle to capture rapidly fluctuating distress.

Drawing on collaborative work with the University of Manchester and Northumbria Police Force, this N8 PRP Agile Evidence Review brings together research evidence, policy guidance, inspection findings, and third-sector practice to examine when suicide risk is highest, how criminal justice processes can intensify vulnerability, and where opportunities for prevention are currently being missed. The review focuses arrest, release from custody, investigative delay, and other key transition points.

Speaker Biographies

Emma Tuschick is a doctoral candidate, lecturer, and research associate in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law at Teesside University. Her research focuses on community reintegration for men convicted of sexual offenses, as well as suicide risk in this population. She has a background in forensic psychology and has previously worked in prisons.

Katy Turner is the Suicide Prevention Coordinator for Northumbria Police and North-East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board. Her key responsibilities include making support referrals for those bereaved by suicide and submitting local data for the Near Real Time Suspected Suicide Alert dashboard and the National Police Chiefs’ Council dataset. Strategically, she is involved in a number of Suicide Prevention projects around key risk factors such as Domestic Abuse and Criminal Justice Involvement, as well as targeted work at high-harm locations. Outside of this role, Katy is a qualified counsellor working for Tyneside and Northumberland Mind.

Catherine Robinson is Professor of Social Care Research and Director of Social Care and Society at the University of Manchester, leading work on social care, long‑term care and global mental health. Her research focuses on the intersection of health and social care, family care, mental health, self‑harm and suicide. She has led major research‑capacity initiatives in the UK and internationally. Current projects include work on the social care needs of people in custody, COVID‑19’s impact on the workforce, and self‑harm surveillance in South Asia. She also leads several NIHR social care programmes and mentors emerging research leaders.

A webinar for practitioners and researchers that applies a procedural justice lens to racially minoritised women’s experiences of policing VAWG.

Using data from a larger N8 PRP-funded study examining the impact of Outcome 16 on racially minoritised women and girls’ participation in DA investigations, Dr Hayley Alderson, Professor Geetanjali Gangoli, Dr Kausiki Saram and Dr Kate Butterby present new work exploring racially minoritised women’s experiences of police responses to Domestic violence and Abuse (DA).

Applying an intersectional feminist approach to a procedural justice framework, The research team will present findings from our qualitative data with eighteen women and discuss with attendees how this relates to their professional and research experience , and the implications for policy and practice.

Speaker Biographies

Kausiki Sarma is a post-doctoral Research Associate at the Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University. Her research interests are broadly around domestic abuse and intersecting social inequalities, ethnic minority populations, with a focus on mixed methods.

Kate Butterby is a researcher at Durham and Glasgow Caledonian University. Her research over the last decade has focused on the broad field of domestic abuse, including areas such as LGBTQ+ people’s experiences, policing of domestic abuse, sexual violence in mainstream pornography, sexual violence on university campuses and so-called honour-based abuse. In April 2026, she will begin work on Nuffield Foundation funded research examining the intersections between the civil and criminal courts for domestic abuse survivors in Scotland.

Geetanjali Gangoli is Professor and Head of Department, Sociology and member of Centre for Research Into Violence and Abuse, Durham University. She has worked in the area of violence and abuse for over 20 years, and her particular specialism is looking at the intersecting roles of class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability in terms of the perpetuation, the experience of and the prevention of gender based violence and abuse.

Hayley Alderson is a Senior Research Associate at Newcastle University. Her research focuses on individuals with multiple disadvantage and complex needs particularly in the arena of domestic violence and abuse (DVA), mental health, substance use and safeguarding. Prior to commencing a career in research, she had 12 years’ practitioner experience working in voluntary, community or social enterprise organisations, local authorities and the HMP Prison service.

At NRiPN Work-Progress Sessions, NRiPN members share current work and preliminary results, inviting feedback and discussion to develop their findings and get input from a broader audience of stakeholders.

In this session, Dr Clare Rawdin (Anglia Ruskin University) will present her project on the experience of female police officers of being pregnant at work, and the implications for the recruitment and retention of women in policing.

Dr Clare Rawdin is a Research Assistant, at Anglia Ruskin University focused on policing research. Clare worked on Operation Soteria, contributing to a process evaluation of a victim support intervention. Prior to becoming a Research Assistant, Clare enjoyed a long career as a teacher of psychology, mostly in schools and colleges. Her PhD investigated social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools from a qualitative and critical perspective.

In this webinar, Naomi Davis-Crane (Liverpool John Moores University) will present the key findings and recommendations from a new review into measuring police culture – the methods available, their limitations and benefits, and whether they can be used to inform ‘culture change’.

Naomi will be joined by Ch. Supt. Darren Adams and Kelli Hellens, Northumbria Police, and Dr Mike Rowe, University of Liverpool, to discuss the implications of the review for police practice and further research.

The full report will be published on the N8 PRP website in advance of the webinar.

Speaker Biographies

Naomi Davis-Crane is a Senior Lecturer in policing at Liverpool John Moores University. She left policing in 2023 in a senior leadership role as the Head of Analysis for Counter Terrorism Policing Borders Operations having had a 13-year career in a diverse range of intelligence roles. Naomi now lectures in police leadership and organisational behaviour, terrorism, and intelligence practice. She is shortly to complete her doctoral study examining the interplay between police culture, leadership and employee motivation; and is currently running research projects including an exploration of civilian experiences of police culture, and an assessment of barriers to female advancement into senior and executive leadership in policing. Whilst also contributing chapters to forthcoming publications concerning innovation in law enforcement, cybercrime and cyber security.

Dr Mike Rowe is a Senior Lecturer in Public Sector Management at the University of Liverpool. His research focuses on encounters between street-level bureaucrats and citizens/clients. He undertook a six-year ethnographic study of police discretion. He is the co-author of Police Street Powers and Criminal Justice, and author of Disassembling Police Culture. He was the Vice Chair of the EU COST Action on Police Stops, co-editing two volumes: Governing Police Stops Across Europe; and The Politicization of Police Stops in Europe.

Ch. Supt Darren Adams is currently the Chief Superintendent (Area Commander) for South Tyneside at Northumbria Police. He joined Lancashire Constabulary in 2001 before transferring to Northumbria Police in 2003. Darren has worked across Response and Neighbourhood Policing functions as well as in CID and the Communications Department. As an Operations Manager for 4 years, Darren had force-wide responsibility for demand and serious/critical incident management. Darren has experience of policing rural, urban and city centre communities and was co-founder of the Northumbria Police Ethnic Minority Association, established in 2017. His recent postings include Superintendent with responsibility for Newcastle and Gateshead, project work in relation to a force wide shift pattern review and cross force regional collaboration in relation to forensic provision. Darren was previously Head of the People Department which included responsibility for organisational culture.

Kelli Hellens is an experienced Evaluation & Quality Assurance Adviser with a strong background in law enforcement and organisational improvement. With over 18 years at Northumbria Police, she specialises in research design, collaboration, communication, and developing strategic partnerships to enhance operational performance. Kelli holds a Master’s degree in International Management from the University of Sunderland and has a proven track record in mentoring, project development, and fostering innovation across multi‑agency environments. Passionate about continuous improvement, she is committed to driving evidence‑based decision‑making, strengthening service delivery, and supporting community‑focused initiatives.

In the highly responsive field of policing, practitioners need to meet urgent and emerging challenges whilst also dealing with intransient issues of inequality, vulnerability, and overstretched resources. There is significant need for high-quality independent research that provides the evidence base for meeting these challenges, but identifying useful, original projects that also meet the demands of academic significance can be a daunting task.

In this webinar, NRiPN members will hear from academics and police about identifying areas for constructive police-academic collaboration, where the rigour and independence of research can inform and improve policing.

Panel

• Andrew Stafford, Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser for Policing
• Dr Lindsey Rice, University of Sheffield
• Karen Byrom, Cheshire Constabulary

Hot Spots policing is intuitively a simple idea – so simple as to be obvious. Police should be deployed to areas where crime is greatest. But beyond this observation, there are a range of more practical questions and issues that are left to police organisations to address.

What are we hoping Hot Spots policing will achieve: catching criminals; a reduction in reported crime; or a greater sense of community safety? And with what crimes are we concerned: anti-social behaviour; violence; or burglaries? And having identified the place and the sorts of offences, what interventions will work? How will we know that they have worked as we hope?

This webinar will explore these themes and more. Chaired by Dr Mike Rowe, University of Liverpool, speakers Julia Wire (College of Policing), Hannah Perry (Merseyside Police), and Dr Toby Davies (University of Leeds) will address questions of policy and the purpose of Hot Spots policing initiatives. They will explore some of the challenges encountered in implementing the practice. And they will discuss the ways in which we might assess the effectiveness of interventions.

The programme and speaker biographies are available at the registration link. 

Speakers:

• Dr Mike Rowe is a Senior Lecturer in Public Sector Management, University of Liverpool. 
• Julia Wire is an Evidence and Evaluation Advisor in the College of Policing. 
• Hannah Perry is an Analytics and Evaluation Manager at Merseyside Police. 
• Dr Toby Davies is an Associate Professor in Criminal Justice Data Analytics at the University of Leeds. 

The 2026 N8 PRP Policing Innovation Forum will be a day of knowledge exchange and innovation. Researchers, police, and other stakeholders will engage with the latest research and cutting-edge, practice-led projects, to find new approaches, new research questions, and new partners for collaboration to improve how we navigate policing, people and health.

This year, N8 PRP will be joined by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SiPR) to examine the points at which policing and health professionals interact in the criminal justice system, and what this means for the people they are responding to.

Further information on the speakers and programme to follow.

We’re currently planning more events – to stay informed, ask your N8 PRP lead to include you in updates, follow us on twitter @n8prp, on bluesky @n8prp.bsky.social‬, on LinkedIn, or watch this space!