Policing Via Phone & Video

Transcript of interview with Stacey Rothwell, director of the Eastern Region Innovation Network, UK

SKN

Hello everyone. This is Susanne Knabe-Nicol from Police Science Dr. And now I've got an exclusive interview for you with Stacey Rothwell, who is the director of the Eastern Region Innovation Network [ERIN], which is a group of seven police forces here in the Southeast of England. And we're going to speak about something really, really important, especially nowadays when we have issues with resource allocation in policing, we have issues with demand, we have issues with staffing, and we have issues with police satisfaction. So, welcome to the stage, Stacey. Hello.

SR

Hello, Susanne.

SKN

Hi. Well, thanks for meeting me on such short notice. We only really started talking yesterday, but what I'd love for you to do is to tell us a little bit about who you are and what you're working on.

SR

My name is Stacey Rothwell and I work for the Eastern Region Innovation Network or ERIN, as the Director of Innovation across seven police forces in the East of England, that's around 11% of policing, and essentially we work as a centre of excellence, sharing our best practice, replicating and scaling up innovation that we've built across Kent, Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridge, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

SKN

Excellent. So, the topic we're talking about today is something that we call rapid video response. I put it here in very lay person's terms, policing by phone and video. Can you give us an overview of what that is?

SR

So, Susanne, essentially it is us being able to use a scientifically tested method of giving a first response to victims of crime. I've tested it in two ways. The first trial was a randomised controlled trial and tested a telephone response to calls for service that are not immediate, but require a response to crimes which excluded domestic abuse. And then secondly, a rapid video response, which was a randomised controlled trial testing a video response to victims of domestic abuse that didn't require an immediate response from policing, but did require a response from us and was done via a video call as opposed to a physical attendance. And I tested across various measures of effectiveness and efficiency to show whether or not it was as good as, or improves, the service that we are currently able to provide by sending police officers in vehicles to a call for service.

SKN

And what did you find? Because people who are not familiar with this topic, their first response might be ‘What do you mean, police just over the phone or just over video?’ It's unconventional. But what did you actually find in your research?

SR

On both trials, what we found was a statistically significant finding of an improvement in victim satisfaction. So, for the first trial, which was broadly all crime excluding domestic abuse, we were able to shift victim satisfaction from 69% to 93%. And then for the second trial, specifically for female victims of intimate domestic abuse, we were able to shift it from 78% to 89%. So, both findings were statistically significant and meant that we could increase their satisfaction, but for domestic abuse, we were able to reduce anxiety and improve trust and confidence. And beyond the victim satisfaction measures, we were able to show that we could improve police efficiency by doing the calls in a shorter period of police officer time, because you exclude travel. And then lastly, we were able to show that you could increase the period of time that it took for us to arrive at calls. So, for instance, on the domestic abuse trial, we showed that it took nearly 33 hours for us to attend physically on average at the calls for service, whereas we could initiate a rapid video response within three minutes. So, that time for victims waiting for their first response from an officer was reduced and shown in the academic article to be 656 times faster, which is really why the satisfaction increased, Susanne.

SKN

Okay. So that's a big difference. So, obviously the speed of actually being able to speak to someone, that's a very deciding factor for victims, isn't it?

SR

Very much so, Susanne. The primary principle of both trials was that you give an immediate response to victims when they call for help. The trial in both instances and now as implemented means that it's optional for victims. They can still choose to wait for a physical response, but the primary principle of both interventions is that when the call arrives into a police control room, it is immediately transferred to an officer and not put onto a list to await resourcing availability. So, that instant response for victims when they call for help.

SKN

And beside the speed of the response, are there any other advantages that increase victim satisfaction, why else would victims want to opt to speak to someone over the phone or via video when they call, rather than wait for someone to arrive?

SR

What we found was from the victim survey on rapid video response for which we got over an 80% response rate, was that the victims enjoyed not only the speed, but the privacy and the convenience of reporting, especially for domestic abuse, when they felt that they were able to report it when they were in a safe space and at their convenience. So, that really made a difference. But also, Susanne, and this was one that I hadn't foreseen. When we looked at the retrospective case analysis, we were able to show that we increased arrests by 50% for those calls that had received an RVR [rapid video response] response. And my hypothesis on that is that we were able to get to the victim much quicker and then really highlight those calls that were high risk so that we could get to them fast and get the offenders apprehended.

SKN

You talk about the privacy there. I think especially in domestic cases it would be a very big plus for the victim if the police are not sitting outside their house with their marked car and the neighbours start talking and maybe somebody tells their partner when they come back home. So, there's a big safety aspect there as well, isn't there? Even when the person's not arrested.

SR

Very much so, I think Susanne, it gave the victims confidence to be able to do that and not worry about the visibility of a police car, but also it means that we can protect them much quicker, because we can speak to the victim within 3 minutes of their call and we can determine that they need a panic alarm or some safety measures or referral to a partner [agency] and we're able to do that instantly. Whereas, if it had taken us 33 hours to get to the victim, we haven't been able to protect them for that period of time. So, the benefits of being able to safeguard victims and make them feel safe, it really came through clear in the trial.

SKN

Are there any disadvantages, and what are the criteria for not offering this either video or phone response? When would it not be appropriate?

SR

On the trial, there wasn't any measure that we found that was less than the physical service. I would say the disadvantages or the difficulty is that you need to set this up, and as you can imagine, you're changing the way in which we respond to calls for service, so whereas before, we would be able to allocate officers when we had availability, now we need to make sure that we have officers available at a time when they call in. So, probably the biggest difficulty is doing modelling to make sure you adequately staff your teams as best you can across the period of time. And your second part of your question, Susanne, I've forgotten now. I knew I would.

SKN

That was about which cases it would not be appropriate for.

SR

Okay. Yes. We have a risk assessment that we put all of our victims through to make sure that they are safe and that the perpetrator wouldn't be able to return whilst we're on the call, that they can communicate well and safely. So, they have the ability to connect through technology and that they are able to communicate, whether it be due to intoxication or another reason that we might not be able to communicate with them, then we might rule that case out, but essentially, we put them through the safety risk assessment to make sure that they are eligible for the call and then we say to them ‘Would you like to receive this service?’

And what was interesting Susanne, is on the trial, 75% of people said that they would choose to use the video response.

SKN

So that's quite interesting. We now know that this really improves victim satisfaction and that is something that is positive in so many ways, but even victims who may be calling for the first time, who don't know any anything about that - that's 75% of them still opt for that when it's offered. So that's quite interesting.

Is that something you've tested across your region of seven police forces or just in Kent, and is it being rolled out, and where?

SR

So, essentially Susanne, as in my role as the director of ERIN or the network across the Eastern region, what we were able to do was to work with the Home Office and the Office of the Police Chief Scientific Advisor to get some funding, which meant that we were able to very quickly share Rapid Video Response across the region and we implemented it in six of the seven police forces at that time and we were able to get RVR stood up in a number of weeks. The stats were done recently, we've serviced over 23,000 RVR calls and our victim satisfaction, albeit not academically measured, but measured by the police forces now sits between 96 and 99%, which is really fantastic for frontline policing departments. We're doing really well with the victims across the Eastern region. Beyond that though, Susanne, it is now being rolled out nationally, and internationally it's being trialled I know in America and has been implemented in Canada and Australia, New Zealand I think as well.

SKN

Well, this international aspect is quite interesting for the Magazine, because its purpose is for practitioners to share these new ideas and they have the advantage: you have already tested it. You've shown if this is a really, really good way of making policing more immediate, providing better protection and being much more resourceful with what you've got. So, hopefully people around the world will think ‘What policing by phone, policing by video?!’ - but actually, you've shown, you've established the evidence base that this really works. That's really why I'm glad that you've come on to this call to share that, because I think it needs to be shared. They're talking about an epidemic of domestic abuse incidents. But other incidents can be dealt with like that as well. So, thank you for that.

My last question which I didn't prep you for is - if you had a magic wand and you could wave it to make one change in policing, what would that one change be?

SR

If I had a magic wand. What we want to do, Susanne, is make everybody overnight have virtual response for both domestic abuse and non-domestic abuse and for control rooms to ask themselves the question when a call is incoming - to say ‘Why wouldn't we virtually respond to this?’ And Susanne, I'll leave you and all your police practitioners with this thought and that is, if we can be on scene virtually with a victim straight away, why would we not do that? Really, if I had a magic wand, that would be my wish, for everybody to have this facility, to be able to get police help when they're really vulnerable, really scared, and really need our support.

SKN

I think you are laying the groundwork for that. So, thank you very much for your time today, Stacy, and I'll be speaking to you soon. Thank you.

SR

Thank you very much.