Neighbourhood Policing: Reflections from the frontline
- samuelcraigie
- Jul 30
- 5 min read
Careers
Carys Jones
Wednesday 30 July 2025
Crest Advisory is proud to be a partner of Police Now, hosting officers on month-long secondments. Working on consulting and think tank projects gives Police Now officers the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of the criminal justice system beyond operational policing - and it gives our staff the chance to learn valuable insights from frontline practice to enrich policy and strategy development. In this blog, our most recent secondee, Carys, reflects on her time at Crest and the government’s new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee.
I have been a Police Officer for two years, and a Neighbourhood Specialist Officer within our Safer Neighbourhoods Team for most of this time. Whilst at Crest, I officially passed my probationary period, meaning that I am now ‘confirmed in rank’. It's a fitting time to sit back and reflect on my experiences so far.
I joined this role through the Police Now National Graduate Leadership Programme, differing from the norm by joining neighbourhoods directly after initial training. Police Now officers work to the mission “to transform communities, reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, and increase the public's confidence in the police service” - we are encouraged to drive change within our communities as brand-new officers. It is easy as a frontline police officer to forget that policing is not the only pillar at play, distracted by the often relentless demands of the job at hand. Throughout my time at Crest, I have had the opportunity to step back from the frontline and understand the wider mechanisms at play within the criminal justice system (CJS). It is not often that a police constable has the chance to gain an invaluable strategic insight into the key pillars of the CJS, meeting experts in the very field that I work in day-to-day.
A commitment to community cohesion
My time at Crest has aligned with the initial release of the government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee (NPG), a pivotal and encouraging development for neighbourhood policing within the Safer Streets mission. The NPG sets out five clear objectives - ranging from the recruitment of neighbourhood officers and community-led policing to tackling anti-social behaviour and enhancing the safety of town centres - objectives that closely reflect the Police Now mission. I am eager to see how the new framework translates into practice on the ground. At a time when public trust in policing is described as ‘hanging by a thread’, it is more important than ever that both the public and police forces alike see a clear commitment to the investment in our policing services.
I have had the privilege of reviewing Crest’s forthcoming report for the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON) and sharing my thoughts, as the report underscored the critical role of place in shaping patterns of crime and anti-social behaviour. The report rightly emphasises that, in order to ‘take back our streets’ by tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, policies must also focus on building social capital and strengthening cohesion at the community level - it is not something that can be simply achieved by putting ‘more boots on the ground’. I will take this key message back into my role, allowing it to inform our daily practice as we work together to implement the objectives of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee - I hope the policy-makers will too.
(In)visible and impactful
The NPG wants to get ‘police back on the beat’ with a key focus on increasing visibility within communities. We know that this method is known to successfully reduce crime and have a positive impact on public perceptions of policing, especially when it is integrated with an evidence-led approach such as Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) (1) (2).
However, whilst at Crest, I have been prompted to reflect on what we truly mean by "visibility". In my experience, community priorities often align with what is immediately visible - such as drug use or criminal damage - and our residents are invaluable as the ‘eyes and ears’ to what is happening on the ground. Yet, it is well known that criminal opportunities have evolved with advancements in technology, giving rise to cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes. For example, during my time at Crest, I had the opportunity to examine the real harms associated with cybercrime - particularly in the context of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) - through discussions on emerging threats such as AI-generated deepfakes.These conversations underscored the pressing need for legislation and policing practices to modernise in step with the evolving tactics of perpetrators. This development may not result in outwardly visible enforcement activity, but it is critical to addressing less visible forms of harm.This raises an important question: to what extent must neighbourhood policing evolve to remain effective in tackling these emerging and not so visible threats, and how do we communicate to the public about the value of this work?
Proactive and data-driven policing
A key function of neighbourhood policing is to problem-solve long-term issues affecting our communities - representing a deliberate shift away from the traditional reactive or 'fire-brigade' model of policing. Under the umbrella of Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) sits the SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) model, a strategy used within policing to identify and address the root-causes of the problem. The model encourages the collection and analysis of information and intelligence, using data, stakeholder input, and contextual understanding to inform effective responses to the problem. However, the typical working style of most police officers - geared towards rapid response and quick decision-making - can be at odds with the more analytical, methodical approach required for POP. With restricted abilities to collect and analyse data, the effective responses to the problem are inevitably limited (3) (4).
Plainly put, police officers are not trained to be data analysts - the people at Crest are. It has been an eye-opening opportunity to spend time with individuals who combine advanced skillsets, subject matter expertise and real-world experience to answer some of the most pressing questions arising for today’s CJS. Every recommendation is founded from a multitude of focus groups, surveys, workshops and desk-based research - I have been extremely lucky to sit in on some of this work.
Even if I take only a fraction of the expertise I have observed at Crest back to the frontline, I am confident that I will be better equipped to address the arising and unresolved issues in my community and contribute meaningfully to the Police Now mission.
(3) Bullock, K. et al. (2022) Problem-oriented policing in England and Wales: barriers and facilitators. Policing and Society, 32(9), pp. 1087–1102. doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2021.2003361
(4) Goldstein, H (2018) On problem-oriented policing: The Stockholm lecture. Crime Sci 7, 13, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-018-0087-3
We have hosted placements from a variety of different organisations. In recent years we’ve welcomed graduates from the Police Now and Unlocked programmes, as well as those from the Civil Service Fast Stream. Every summer we welcome Micro-Placement students from City, University of London. You can read about their experiences on our Careers page.
If you’re interested in doing a placement with us, please get in touch at contact@crestadvisory.com and we can discuss in more detail.
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