Perceptions of police occupational culture were measured in a sample of senior women in policing (N = 169) through an online survey conducted late 2017/early 2018 to explore the occurrence of sexual harassment and sex discrimination. Negative aspects of ‘cop’ culture are associated with greater rates of harassing and discriminatory experiences. Social Identity Theory (SIT) examined the salience of role, gender and seniority as factors relevant to those experiences. Conclusions discuss implications for reform and cultural change.

Evidence-based policing (EBP) is an important strand of the UK’s College of Policing’s Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF), itself a component of a professionalisation agenda. This article argues that the two dominant approaches to EBP, experimental criminology and crime science, offer limited scope for the development of a comprehensive knowledge base for policing. Although both approaches share a common commitment to the values of science, each recognizes their limited coverage of policing topics. The fundamental difference between them is what each considers ‘best’ evidence. This article critically examines the generation of evidence by these two approaches and proposes an extension to the range of issues EBP should cover by utilizing a greater plurality of methods to exploit relevant research. Widening the scope of EBP would provide a broader foundational framework for inclusion in the PEQF and offers the potential for identifying gaps in the research, constructing blocks for knowledge building, and syllabus development in higher level police education.

This paper presents an overview of current trends besetting the police service in England and Wales, including the reduction of resources through austerity pressures, changing patterns of crime such as rises in cyber-related offences, greater victim focus, the introduction of graduate entry and changes in political accountability through the newly elected Police and Crime Commissioners. Secondary analysis of data enabled an assessment of the degree to which these impacts the employment and deployment of women in policing. As the gender ratio changes and reforms facilitate styles of policing with greater emphasis on the ethic of care it might be expected this will reflect more feminine values. The conclusion drawn is that the impacts of feminisation are somewhat overstated and remain rather fragile.

As part of the rise of “get tough” punishment in recent decades, prison systems increasingly have relied on solitary confinement and what many contemporary accounts have termed “restrictive housing.” The latter includes an emphasis on some form of isolation and restrictions on privileges. Use of solitary-like confinement has engendered considerable debate because of differing views about whether it is moral or effective and whether it harms inmates. Despite this debate and the ubiquity of solitary-like confinement, there is much that remains unknown about its uses or effects. A central reason stems from inconsistent operationalizations of such housing in research and policy. This situation creates problems in generalizing the results of studies to diverse settings and populations. The goals of this article are to highlight these points and to advance scholarship and policy debates by presenting a conceptual framework for guiding and assessing research on restrictive housing.

An online survey (N = 1,776) was conducted with support staff to explore the type and incidence of sexual harassment within the police working environment and the explanatory value of known antecedent factors. Univariate results indicated that the highest levels of sexual harassment were associated with sexual banter, reported by three quarters of those surveyed, and diminishing levels of exposure to more serious types of harassment. Multivariate analyses showed statistically significant associations between levels of exposure and organisational variables but few demographic factors. Having established a better understanding of salient risk factors, the discussion identifies implications for organisational preventative interventions.

This paper discusses three themes in relation to assessing progress in the Criminal Justice System's (CJS) ability to investigate and successfully prosecute rape. The themes are business as usual, the justice gap and implementation problems. They arose as a consequence of two discussion papers in this volume by Kate Cook and Jan Jordan, who take positions of optimism and pessimism with respect to improvements for rape victim survivors after a series of reforms and changes in police and prosecution procedures. The stimulus for these papers was the latest review in England and Wales into the CJS's approach to rape conducted by Baroness Stern (2010). The present paper observes that the lack of systematic evaluative research makes it difficult to assess whether innovations in the CJS with respect to rape have been effective or to partial out the relative contribution law reform and changing police or prosecution practice may have made to reporting and conviction rates. Finally, it is suggested that intensification of effort to fully implement review recommendations may achieve limited improvement because of the characteristics of an adversarial legal model.