Oct 2014 Speaker Prof Lawrence Sherman - Can Research Prevent Crime ?

Today we had a very thought-provoking talk by Professor Lawrence Sherman about his research work on the Topic - Can Research Prevent Crime?  He is a leading expert in the study of Police Forces across the world and advises globally on policy.

The talk ranged quite widely through the current thinking around managing crime and included :

In his opinion the British police and education systems are the best in the world.  Despite the continuing citicism in the press he maintains the police in Britain are the most focused, honest, disciplined, well trained, self-critical and self correcting that he has seen.  Whereas many other countries have forces who are aggressive, corrupt, unaccountable, unrestrained and badly trained.  He was also in favour of keeping the 43 independent police forces we have, that balance and scrutinise each other, rather than the suggested national organisation that may be easily dominated and swayed by politicians.

He talked about new crime map statistics that he had helped put together, that split the country into hotspots for different types of crime, weighted by the sentencing perpetrators would receive in court (ie their severity).  This was to be used to plan effective policing in those areas

He also made some interesting comments about the education ratings that have come out recently.  These seem to suggest that our standards have slipped when compared to the rest of the world. However he pointed out that in Britain we have a very diverse population and many children speak non-english languages but still the overall standards are good.  Other countries who do very well in the ratings have much less diversity and while their main population does well they completely fail their ethnic minorities.

NOTE - Our meal this evening proved popular amongst the 25 present - puff pastry chicken pie with a tasty cream sauce, roast new potatoes and mixed veg, followed by a choice of chocolate tart with ice cream or cheese and biscuits.  Coffee or Tea, with water on the table.