This year’s National Evidence-Based Policing Conference was a great opportunity to focus on positive stories about the difference being made in, and by, the policing system. Over two days, delegates heard from a range of academics, police officers and partners working together to evidence what works in tackling some of the wicked issues facing policing, such as demand outstripping resources, falling victim satisfaction, the epidemic of violence against women and girls, and poor morale.

The conference, jointly hosted by the Society of Evidence Based Policing  and the Youth Endowment Fund, brought together a national and international audience in the University of Huddersfield to discuss the wide range and variety of evidence that can be used to improve policing practice and outcomes.

We heard about innovation from South Yorkshire Police, where PC John Porter and Sergeant Ben Hanson pioneered adoption of a simple GPS tool to support families continue to care for loved ones with dementia who often go missing from home. Having overcome governance and policy barriers to introduce the pilot, the team have seen the GPS tracker reduced missing episodes from 84 in the previous year to one.

Colleagues from West Yorkshire Police shared their creation of the domestic abuse, stalking and honour-based abuse risk checklist (DASH) which is used to predict future harm and better safeguard victims, while Professor Andy Newton of Nottingham Trent University and Amanda Johnson of Essex Emergency Services Collaboration shared the pioneering work of Project Minerva, a statistical mapping tool used to identify high-risk public places for violence against women and girls in Essex.

Dr Simon Baldwin of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the conference officers can only respond to calls and provide the service required if they have the right training. His experiment focused on understanding stress responses in officers attending incidents, highlighting that high stress levels can cause poor decision making. After conducting a live simulation (in which some officers were so panicked they “shot” a suicidal man) he found that while the right training did not reduce officers heart rates, it did enable them to better perform under intense pressure.

We were given a fast-paced tour of gamification and its potential uses in policing. Superintendent James Sutherland, Head of Organisational Development for Cambridgeshire Constabulary, presented the results of his own work to use gamification to promote greater workforce motivation, through use of team leaderboards, progression badges, and ratings given by victims and other service users. The session showed how game mechanics can boost engagement and lead to improvements.

Detective Superintendent David Cowan of the Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidence Based Policing reminded us that, although you may have evidence showing what needs to change, converting this evidence to policy change on the ground is hard. Giving the example of the Royal Navy who took 50 years to introduce citrus fruit on ships after James Lind discovered it prevented scurvy, he told the conference that in many cases evidence-based policing challenges the status quo, which creates resistance. But with persistence and well-designed experiments, and with the right leadership, the trials and tribulations can be overcome.