Category Archives: RASSO

Equipping officers to make women safer from Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) – insights from Operation Soteria Bluestone

Posted on by

Dr Emma Williams, Dr Linda Maguire, Dr Arun Sondhi and Richard Harding, The Open University, Centre for Policing Research and Learning. Operation Soteria Bluestone team, Pillar 4

Welcome to the fifth and final (but no means least) blog in this special series celebrating International Women’s Day.  Today’s blog shares important insights about the ground-breaking project currently underway to transform the police response to Rape and Serious Sexual Offences.

Investigating Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) is complex and is one of the most challenging aspects of violence against women and girls for the criminal justice system. It requires specialist knowledge input and officers who are confident in their roles to undertake this task. The complexity arises partly from the fact that many of the victims of these offences often have many vulnerabilities. This means that many RASSO victims are far removed from the notion of an ‘ideal victim’ and it is often these factors that impact on their receiving a fair process. Hence, women with the most serious vulnerabilities and likely to be targeted and groomed by perpetrators and as a result, are also those most at risk of their cases resulting in attrition.

Further complexity arises from the fact that many investigations involve difficult interpersonal relationships, where there are often no independent witnesses, and where victim accounts and behaviours can be misinterpreted through many false lenses, including misogyny, homophobia, myth and misconception, and ignorance of the effects of trauma. All of these factors require investigators to have specialist and expert knowledge. They should have completed appropriate learning and development opportunities to enable them to have the knowledge, attitudes and skills to understand and effectively engage with the complexities of RASSO investigation and the related trauma.

Operation Soteria Bluestone is a UK Home Office-funded programme designed to improve the investigation of RASSO in England and Wales. Our findings confirm the systemic challenges that police services are facing in trying to manage the demand for RASSO investigation.  In our review of learning provision and officer welfare we found that investigators, at all levels, are aware of the impacts of cases being allocated to officers with, often, limited experience or learning. Where experienced investigators were available, particularly in supervisory roles, they often had limited knowledge refresh since their initial courses and were sometimes struggling to support less experienced colleagues whilst managing their own caseloads.  Collectively we heard investigators express their frustration at wanting to fulfil their mission to solve crime, bring perpetrators to justice and do the right thing for victims, whilst working in an environment that made achieving those goals increasingly challenging. Morally this presents huge challenges for officers involved in investigating this crime type.

Part of our approach was to explore the relationship some of these issues may have with the concept of occupational burnout. The notion of burnout is well established in policing. Over recent years it has been considered to be increasingly prevalent as a result of austerity measures and changing operational demands. Factors relevant to RASSO investigations also include the increased requirements for processing and investigating digital evidence, the need to provide a victim-orientated service alongside the changing relationship with the Crown Prosecution Service, which has all added to an increased workload for officers.

Factors encompassing burnout include exhaustion, feelings of negativity or cynicism and reduced levels of personal accomplishment. People who are emotionally exhausted tend to feel over-extended and physically drained. Cynicism can manifest itself in greater detachment or depersonalisation from victims, with feelings that officers have achieved little success at work. Symptoms of burnout tend to report physical and mental exhaustion and reduced ability to care for the victims with which they work, leaving a sentiment that their work makes little difference. Despite the prevalence of burnout symptoms, police officers are unlikely to seek help or support within their organization or externally for professional treatment due to fear of stigma or loss of job role.

Our work on Operation Soteria Bluestone has explored the learning, development and wellbeing climate for officers investigating RASSO. A key finding is that predictors are not specific to a single police force, but common to all forces. The findings suggest the importance of the wider organisation in influencing emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. The causes of burnout are consistent with the literature on policing including perceptions of workload, large caseloads and the detrimental perceived effect on an officer’s work-life balance. We identified high levels of stress and ill-health, alongside pressures to come to work despite being unwell. Whilst those involved in the management and investigation of RASSO cases are exposed to vicarious trauma through their work with victims, they have additional and varying degrees of trauma through the organisational process itself.

In addition, the high number of caseloads places a burden on the learning climate, reducing the time that officers have to receive specialist training to do their job. We believe that if officers are equipped with the proper resources and specialist training, they will be empowered to do their job and this will impact positively on their wellbeing.  If these resources are low and demand is high, as our findings suggest, burnout can occur. Therefore, the knowledge to date from the work on Soteria Bluestone offer really important insights into the relationship between the police organisations’ commitment to enabling their staff to deliver professional police investigations in the context of RASSO. The connection between officer competence and confidence and the provision and ability to access learning, to support their development and officer wellbeing, is vital.

With a new National Operating Model for investigating RASSO in development for implementation, police organisations will be better prepared to improve the current situation for their workforces. Organisational change is needed to really enable, involve and equip officers, not only to enhance their own wellbeing, but ultimately to improve outcomes for victims. As a research team we are excited to be working with forces and helping them to prepare for managing the provision of specialist learning, development and wellbeing support RASSO officers, to enable policing to make transformational change in this crucial area of justice.

 

Concluding remarks

Thank you for reading our blog posts this month.  As you can see, here at OU Policing we are committed to conducting research about issues that affect the lives of women.  The project we have shared this month are underpinned by a desire to improve women’s lives – be that through the criminal justice response to domestic abuse and rape, girls experiences of criminal exploitation, or women’s experiences as mothers in the police.  If you would like to know more about our work, or you would like to work with us, please don’t hesitate to contact us at OUPC@open.ac.uk

Organisational commitment to learning and development and the link to officer welfare

Posted on by

Dr Emma Williams of the Open University’s Centre for Policing Research explores the importance of CPD in wellbeing, particularly in relation to equipping officers with the skills, knowledge and learning required to investigate complex rape cases and sexual offences more effectively.

“There is literally no teaching, no training and I think there could maybe a better input on what is expected of you as an OIC. But you literally have to do or die.” (Detective Inspector)

Knowledge attainment is not linked simply to individual development but also to organisational learning and improvement.

In the context of policing specialist areas, organisations need to think carefully about how to enable and empower their workforce through continuing professional development (CPD), and assist them in becoming both confident and capable in their roles.

Evetts (2011) suggests that this enabling of professional service delivery links to organisational legitimacy, in that decision making and subsequent actions are informed and based on appropriate knowledge input.

In the field in which policing operates, methods of criminality, offender typologies, victims and vulnerabilities change at pace, especially with the fast-moving development of technology, digital platforms, and societal change. Therefore, officers need regular professional development input to upskill and update their knowledge based on the transient nature of policing as an occupation.

The police have received ongoing criticism for their investigation of rape over a long period of time, yet changes to justice outcomes remain challenging. Complex areas of policing require effective understanding by officers; without that, the opportunity for change is put at risk and improvement stalled.

The importance of CPD and knowledge input has been discussed at length within this series of articles. What this piece aims to explore, or at least question, is the link between the learning development offer by police organisations and the wellbeing and individual sense of professionalism held by their officers, specifically in the context of the investigation of rape and sexual offending.

Empowered through knowledge

Wilcock and Townsend (2000) argue that enhancement of a professional identity through CPD is critical to wellbeing. More often than not in policing discussions about wellbeing – especially when discussing officers involved in crimes such as child and adult sexual offending – we see reference to case-related trauma, exposure to indecent images etc, but very little debate about organisational stressors and how they relate to welfare in policing.

Emerging findings from a recent research project on wellbeing and learning and development among investigating officers involved in rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) – part of the wider national Project Soteria / Bluestone research – suggest that while officers are aware of the need for more knowledge input in this area, it is not prioritised within their organisations.

Workload, austerity cuts and the national detective crisis has meant that processes of restructure and the refiguration of investigation teams have become more concerned with capacity than capability within those teams.

This leaves officers stripped of the specialist and expert knowledge they need to professionally investigate cases that involve complex victims, relationships, trauma, and questions of consent.

Birch et al (2017) argue that organisational justice is central to this debate as the workforce need to feel included, fairly supported to do their job and empowered through knowledge. Without this, coping mechanisms put in place by workers will leads to stress and potential burnout. This is becoming clear in the emerging findings in this research.

Development plans

Our work on Bluestone has revealed a clear reliance in policing on omnicompetence in RASSO investigations.

While the generic procedural knowledge taught in other investigative courses is applied, the complexities officers face in understanding the intersectional issues involved in attrition – such as victim/offender relationships, vulnerabilities, previous criminality, and the chaotic lifestyles of some of the victims – is often understood through the lens of past experience or embedded cultural knowledge. This is often imparted through peers.

What is more problematic with this, in the current policing climate, is the high number of very young-in-service officers who are placed in roles to meet capacity demand without being empowered effectively to deliver what is needed.

What is required here for the officers is specialist knowledge where officers are provided with input at the start of their journey working in RASSO investigations which is continued throughout their career in this field.

This article is not focused on the issues the research found with the Serious Sexual Assault Investigative Development Programme (SSAIDP), which is the learning input that all officers working in this field should be provided. It is more concerned with the lack of individual development plans for officers which should be in place to update the skills required in this fast-moving area of criminality.

While statements about time, workload and other issues featured in conversations about the lack of CPD, what also came up time and time again was the concern officers have for their team members wellbeing if they were to have days off allocated to development options.

There appears to an assumption that demand juxtaposed with a lack of detectives needs to leave learning as secondary rather than an essential part of improvements in this area.

Placing more value on learning in this area is likely to make investigations more efficient as officers will be better equipped and competent to undertake the work with the knowledge they need to do so professionally.

At the current time the research suggests that learning conflicts with officers’ desire to manage the workload. However, paradoxically, this lack of development adds to their anxiety and welfare issues.

Transformational change

Key research states that organisational burnout can occur when a lack of resources, personnel included, is matched with high work demand.

Organisations have a clear role and responsibility to empower and provide their staff with the resources they need to deliver in their role. The value of CPD in this area is essential if we expect officers to make improvements in justice outcomes for all rape victims.

The relationship between organisational justice and procedural justice is clear, and if officers are falling back on culturally entrenched knowledge and practice and perceptions of victim deservedness to make decisions in this area, improvements are at risk – as is the fair distribution of justice.

There needs to be transformational change in the area of RASSO learning and CPD which makes a commitment to empowering officers and ensuring competence and subsequently a commitment to the public and victims to genuinely improve practice in this field.

 

References

Birch, P., Vickers, M.H., Kennedy, M. and Galovic, S. (2017) ‘Wellbeing, occupational justice and police practice: an ‘affirming environment’?’, Police practice & research, 18 (1), pp. 26-36

Evetts, J. (2011) ‘A new professionalism? Challenges and opportunities’, Current Sociology, 59(4), pp. 406-422.

Wilcock, A. and Townsend, E. (2000) ‘Occupational terminology interactive dialogue’, Journal of Occupational Science, 7(2), pp. 84-86.

CPD and reflective practice: Improving investigations and wellbeing in rape and serious sexual offences

Posted on by

by Dr Nicky Miller, Dr Emma Williams and Richard Harding of the Open University’s Centre for Policing Research and Learning

Learning in policing should be continuous, iterative and lifelong, taking place throughout the career journey of a police officer or member of police staff.

While many of the problems facing policing are complex, contested and wicked, it operates in a constantly changing field, which is not static and unidimensional but complex, dynamic and often transient.
This means that knowledge resources, accessed via a variety of different methods and means, are both critical and central to the continued development of practice, effectiveness and the service delivered to the publics that policing serves.

These different knowledge resources might involve research evidence, policy developments, legislative change, and data analytics to mention but a few. However, what are rarely systematically captured, critically evaluated and shared are reflections on practice and experiences as a method to enable learning and improvement.

Given the extensive knowledge and experience held by officers, standardising its organisational capture could be considered in the drive to improve efficiency.

Reflective practice and RASSO

Reflective practice is more than simply looking back on an event. Reviewing retrospectively is the first step on the path to development. It is about understanding our actions, our current levels of knowledge, and our existing skill set. It is the ability to recognise gaps or deficits and then identify approaches to remedy any issues and address shortcomings.

Reflecting on experiences, both negative and positive, offers a channel for individual, team, and organisational development, all of which are central to the creation of an effective learning environment and subsequently organisational improvement.

The Centre for Police Research and Learning (CPRL) is currently involved in Project Soteria Bluestone, a Home Office-funded project exploring the investigation of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO).

The pillar of work CPRL is leading on is examining ‘learning and development and officer wellbeing’. There are several factors attached to this pillar of work, but one of the strongest themes emerging from the work to date is the importance of reflective practice as a form of continuous professional development and iterative learning for those involved in investigating RASSO.

In this short piece we will draw on our work in Avon and Somerset Police to highlight the potential of reflective practice to improve the investigation of RASSO and access to justice for victims of these crimes.
Given the extreme complexity involved in the investigation of RASSO cases reported to the police, iterative learning, the critical assessment of practice and the establishment of feedback loops into learning cycles is essential.

While we would always advocate specialism through the delivery of specialist knowledge to officers that investigate these highly complex crimes, to date in our Bluestone work, we have predominantly seen didactic approaches to learning, a limited application of learning into practice and options for CPD, and no dedicated time for reflective practice and critical thinking about decisions made or the application of learning for the purposes of creating further personal and professional learning.

Improved service delivery and wellbeing

Officers we spoke to provided a clear narrative about the benefits of such reflective approaches more specifically from both a learning and wellbeing perspective.

The wider benefits of reflective practice per se, but particularly in the context of RASSO, link to the potential improvement to the service delivered to victims and survivors – and more broadly the quality of investigations as they move through the criminal justice system – as well as officer wellbeing.

Furthermore, integrating reflective practices at the heart of operational and learning activities offers individuals and organisations the opportunity to use these reflections on what worked well and what did not to create more iterative approaches to learning.

Such methods would facilitate the integration of lessons learned into a more effective learning cycle, and help to identify core areas for focused self-directed and organisationally provided CPD sessions.

Such learning might also provide examples of cases to support more blended learning approaches which explore ‘real’ cases to better connect theory and practice using learning content that resonates with practitioners in a more applied way.

Finally promising or innovative ideas that help to improve the delivery of a professional investigations for the victim could be shared.

Transformational change

By having key reflection points and dedicated reflection time within the process of an investigation strategy or case review, certain assumptions and regular patterns of thoughts and behaviours that can adversely shape thinking, decisions, actions and outcomes can be challenged.

In a crime type that involves such high levels of attrition at the police investigative stage of the criminal justice system these challenges are clearly required if we really hope to achieve transformational change in this space.
In organisations that are risk averse, admitting failure can be challenging. Organisations have a responsibility to allow for and provide a safe space for officers to talk through untoward outcomes, mistakes and perceived failures, in order to move forward and improve outcomes for victims and survivors of RASSO.
We are cognisant of the fact that officers are overworked, demand is high, and time is limited for reflective processes. However, the gains associated with building this into an investigation process are key to investigative effectiveness, officer competence and confidence, access to justice, and organisational health.

A powerful tool

Our research has found clear links between the wellbeing of personnel involved in RASSO investigations and their levels of professional competence, which highlights the critical roles that both formal and informal learning play in creating these.

Critical questions focused on case and victim needs, learning gaps, officers’ own wellbeing, victim/survivor needs and how these factors interact with organisational and wider CJS factors are worthy of ongoing contemplation and reflection in order to iteratively understand and adjust systems, cultures and approaches from a more whole systems perspective.

There was a desire for more time to reflect on decisions made and increase learning from the officers; therefore we suggest that embedding reflective practice more centrally in both investigative and learning practice is a powerful tool to achieve this aim.

Policing already employs forms of reflective practice in certain disciplines – for example, firearms operational debriefs – but the practice is not widespread or instinctive.

Avon and Somerset Police, led by their Chief Constable, Sarah Crew, have started this journey by implementing a new investigative strategy developed by our colleagues in Bluestone, Dr Kari Davies and Professor Miranda Horwath.

This strategy features reflective practice at the centre. We believe that this process will link to ‘on the job’ professional development, and offers further learning across teams and the wider organisation in the longer term.

Ultimately, in this context the police are learning to ask new and different questions and to grapple with the challenges of how to be better at delivering outcomes for victims and survivors of RASSO.