Consultancies and Collaborations

Working Together

The Lincoln Centre for Crime and Justice has been working on a number of collaborations with a range of crime and justice-related organisations.

The Policing Network

The Policing Network is a partnership between the University of Lincoln and Lincolnshire Police. It was launched in September 2021 and has the following strategic objectives:

1. To work collaboratively across the University and with Lincolnshire Police to identify areas of policing which require challenge-led research.

2. To work collaboratively across the University and with Lincolnshire Police to make applications for funding.

3. To work collaboratively across the University and with Lincolnshire Police to carry out research with impact.

The Network currently hosts four groups (health and wellbeing, communities, digital policing, and reducing reoffending and mental health).

Current funded projects include:

Learning from the experiences of young people within Integrated Offender Management: Integrated Offender Management (IOM) is a partnership approach to reducing offending which provides support to, and management of, people identified as being engaged in offending behaviour which causes damage and harm within the local community. Under the relaunch of IOM in Lincolnshire, a new cohort of people aged 18-25 has been adopted and a scoring tool implemented to determine acceptance into the cohort. This research is an initial study to understand the needs and experiences of young people within the IOM cohort that would subsequently inform further research in the area.

Project Team: Inspector Claire Hime, PC James Bateman, PSO Neil Garnham, Dr Lauren Smith, Ms Rachael Mason, Dr Kaili Zhang, Dr Niko Kargas, Dr Lauren Hall & Professor Todd Hogue.

Automating Policing Functions: This involves two projects, which are based around automating some backend functions to free up officers and staff time spent on administrative tasks. The two projects are: (1) automating the victims survey; (2) automating how crimes are reported, and how online requests for information are dealt with. AS part of this, the team will also evaluate the impact that this automation has had on the quality of service and the time and money that such automation has saved.

Project Team: Dr Joshua Skoczylis , Prof Steve McKay, Dr Kay Ritchie, Dr Mohammed Al-Khafajiy and the Tech Futures team at Lincolnshire Police.

Humanists UK, NI Humanists and Lincolnshire Humanists

After her PhD work identified marginalisation of secular world views in institutional chaplaincies, Dr Katie Hunt has put her research into practice as the university chaplaincy’s Humanist Advisor. She takes this work into the community as the Chair of Lincolnshire Humanists and a member of the Lincoln InterFaith committee, and collaborates with Humanists UK and NI Humanists on training, activism, and legal reform.

Spark Inside Coaching in Prisons

Professor Karen Harrison, Dr Lauren Smith, Rachael Mason, and Dr Roger Bretherton have been commissioned to conduct an 18-month evaluation of the Spark Inside Prison Staff Life Coaching Programme. The evaluation aims to:

1. Understand the perceived impact of coaching in the experiences of prison staff.

2. Explore commonalities and differences in the areas of life that people chose to address through the coaching.

3. Identify the perceived benefits of coaching, whether they were sustained, and identify any commonalities when sustainment was achieved.

4. Establish whether the participants of the research left or stayed in service and gain an understanding of their motivations.

5. Understand the self-reported impact of coaching upon workplace skills and motivation.

6. Gather recommendations for how the coaching programme could be improved.

Boston Neighbourhood Policing Community Engagement

Dr Carina O’Reilly is leading an ongoing collaboration with Boston neighbourhoods team. This project is aimed at supporting the Boston team’s ability to apply evidence-based strategies to improve their community engagement and other elements of their neighbourhood policing work, using interventions such as hot-spot patrols and community-based problem-solving approaches, as well as continuing existing online engagement methods initiated during COVID.

Lincolnshire Prison Release Housing Protocol: An Initial Review

A team led by Dr Lauren Smith has recently completed a review of the Lincolnshire Prison Release Housing Protocol which aims to reduce homelessness and rough sleeping on release from prison through a co-ordinated approach across Local Housing Authorities, providers of support, HM Prison and Probation Service, and providers of accommodation. The review sought feedback from partners who are signed up to the protocol to establish progress to date, what was working well and what needed to happen moving forward. The findings have been presented to the Task and Finish Group for the protocol and will be shared with the Safer Lincolnshire Partnership and an action plan developed to address the recommendations arising from the report.

Autism and Learning Disabilities

A team led by Professor Niko Kargas, including Rachael Mason, Professor Todd Hogue and Dr Lauren Smith from the LCCJ, has completed a review on behalf of NHS England, Meeting the Needs of Autistic Adults and Adults with Learning Disabilities in Midlands Prisons. Twenty-four prisons across the Midlands took part in the review which comprised staff questionnaires and focus groups with people in prison.