February 4, 2025 • 42 mins
The CopDoc Podcast - Season 7 - Episode 146
Join us for an engaging conversation with Dr. Peter Neyroud, former Chief Constable and current professor at Cambridge University, as he recounts his fascinating journey from a history major at Oxford to a trailblazer in British policing. We discuss how a chance meeting led him into the police service in 1980 and explore his pivotal contributions, from pioneering community policing to implementing evidence-based practices. Dr. Neyroud's reflections on leadership, trust, and the challenges of organizational change provide invaluable insights for anyone interested in the dynamics of policing and reform.
This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for those passionate about leadership. We delve into the art of identifying and nurturing innovative leaders within organizations, sharing personal stories and lessons learned from supportive mentors like John Hodnot. Discover strategies for cultivating talent, balancing autonomy with guidance, and adapting leadership styles to meet the unique needs of high-pressure environments. These insights, drawn from real-world experiences, highlight the critical role of mentorship and continuous learning in fostering a culture of innovation.
Lastly, we tackle the intricacies of driving change within entrenched systems, as seen through the lens of UK policing. From the creation of the National Policing Improvement Agency to the rapid adaptation required by the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine the complexities and successes of reform efforts. Through discussions on transparency, evidence-based policing, and maintaining public confidence, this episode underscores the importance of clear communication and strategic leadership in navigating the challenges of modern policing. Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of leadership and reform in the world of policing.
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com
Website: www.copdocpodcast.com
If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Morreale (00:00):
Hey everybody, Steve Morreale here.
Welcome to The CopDoc podcast.
We're about to listen to PeterNeyroud.
Dr.
Peter Neyroud, the former ChiefConstable of Police Service in
the UK.
We split this into two becausewe were able to speak for so
long, and this is session one.
In the first segment, weexplore Dr Neyrpoud's journey
from Oxford, where he was ahistory major, and on to his
(00:23):
unusual entry into policing.
During our conversation, we'llhear about his early innovations
in community policing, hisexperience managing major
investigations and, morerecently, his role in developing
evidence-based practices inBritish policing.
Peter shares his insights aboutthe importance of trust in
leadership and in implementingorganizational change.
(00:46):
With his experience andperspective as both first a
frontline officer and then asenior leader, you'll find that
Peter was responsible for anumber of reforms and
innovations, working for thegovernment, on behalf of the
government and ultimatelycreating the National College of
Policing in the UK.
So stay tuned.
(01:07):
Here is Peter Neyroud andsession one on The CopDoc
Podcast.
This podcast explores policeleadership issues and innovative
ideas.
The CopDoc shares thoughts andideas as he talks with leaders
in policing communities,academia and other government
agencies.
And now please join Dr SteveMorreale and industry thought
(01:32):
leaders as they share theirinsights and experience on the
CopDoc Podcast.
Intro - Outro (01:40):
Hello everybody, steve Morreale coming to you
from Boston, massachusetts, andwe head over the pond to talk to
Peter Neyroud, Dr Peter Neyroud, who is with Cambridge
University.
He's a professor ofevidence-based policing, a
former big shot in policing overin Great Britain, a member of
all kinds.
Actually, there are thingswe're going to be talking about,
(02:01):
Peter, that I'm reading aboutyou, but hello there.
I know it's morning here,afternoon there.
How are you, sir?
Peter Neyroud (02:06):
I'm very well.
I'm very well Getting ready forChristmas.
Intro - Outro (02:08):
Well, thank you and Merry Christmas to you.
As I said before, as we started, we're fluctuating from 15
degrees to 50 degrees, which iscrazy.
Once in a while we get somesnow and then it melts, but
that's just the time of the year, so I'm so happy to have you on
.
I'd love you to start bytelling us your history.
How did you become involved inpolicing?
What the hell were you thinkingwhen you thought I'm going to
(02:29):
go back for a doctorate?
And now you're in academia, apracademic like myself, with
feet in both places, policing,indeed, in academia.
So tell us about yourself.
Peter Neyroud (02:38):
So this is exactly what I'm doing at the
moment.
I'm sat and have been for thelast month or so actually
finally doing something I wantedto do for a long time, which is
actually to write up thatcareer.
But I'm trying to do it in away that makes the connection
between what I've done across 45years, which is a long old time
, and the kind of bigdevelopments in policing across
(03:00):
that period of time, many ofwhich I've realized as I've gone
through, I've been involved in.
So I joined a police service in1980.
I came to it with a degree inmodern history from the
University of Oxford, which is avery fine degree, and I'm still
a passionate historian,including of policing, which I
think is quite often a majorproblem for police officers.
Intro - Outro (03:19):
It's a deficit.
We don't consider our historyand then it repeats itself.
Why?
I hear you Correct.
Peter Neyroud (03:25):
Or we keep muttering platitudes like Peel's
principles, which, given thatPeel was not actually
responsible for them and theyare largely an artifact of the
1930s, made up by a ratherparticularly good historian
called Reith it's a bit likesaying, well, we believe in a
crime policy based about RobinHood, but I joined and I joined.
It was a sort of odd thing todo.
(03:46):
You know, you go to Oxford, youread history in 1980, about the
last place you go is policing,and it came about because, well,
I'd kind of I didn't want to.
There were various things Icouldn't do, by the way, because
I'm a Swiss citizen as well asBritish.
I couldn't be in civil serviceor whatever, because at that
stage you were barred.
So I went casting about forthings to do, got a job in the
car industry, which looked quiteinteresting, until I discovered
(04:07):
the way they treated theirstaff when I went around the
factory, came back, had a drinkwith a fresher I was looking
after, who turned out to be aninspector in Thames Valley
Police, who said well, you couldpick up a police officer.
My response was what on earthwould I want to do that for?
So he took me down to a policestation, to the police station.
Intro - Outro (04:22):
Not in handcuffs.
Not in handcuffs.
Peter Neyroud (04:24):
No, no, no, no.
It was a voluntary attempt,basically.
He left me with a custodysergeant for the night.
I was still there and when thedawn came up and I didn't look
back, I was completelyfascinated.
I know I went and did afour-day sort of vacation course
with the same force with ThamesValley, and then I applied and
I joined Hampshire, which was mylocal police force.
(04:46):
I got sent to a little placecalled Romsey, a young constable
and, just as a sort of clueabout beginning to get used to
this organization, I arrived tofind a cutter, to find my
sergeant at the desk to greet me, who said thank God, we thought
you were Indian Because with mysurname they thought I was
Indian.
But I thought the thank God, wethought you were indian because
with my surname they thought Iwas indian.
But I thought the thank god, wethought you were indian was a
(05:07):
pretty cool message.
Yes, of course.
Yeah, it was a first.
What I got, you know I've gotthrough.
I did, you know, the standardthing that we, all of us do,
that period of learning whereyou're trying to find your way
but it didn't last very longbecause within nine months, I
got asked to go and see thechief constable, which you know
you don't get asked to see thechief constable.
But I did no well, not withoutgetting some very odd looks
(05:29):
around you and I basically gotasked to devise, design, improve
and evaluate a communitypolicing scheme.
So yeah, well, obviously adegree in modern history
prepared you for that actuallywhat I did which I think is
quite important as aconversation between the two of
us is.
I went and read everything Icould find about the
developments in communitypolicing that were going on.
I read Herman Goldstein's firstcontributions.
(05:50):
I read a load of stuff outabout Dallas and Houston and
Chief Brown and the work that hewas doing and a range of
schemes and I thought there issomething here.
What we came up with inHampshire was, I think, one of
the earlier versions of themodern community policing
approach.
The problem was which I don'tthink I necessarily noticed to
(06:11):
quite the extent I should havedone at the time, because
obviously you're a youngconstable and you don't know
this stuff was that we neveractually implemented it properly
.
We just didn't get it out onthe ground and though I
evaluated it, it was not.
I wouldn't call that evaluationnow.
In fact I would have failedmyself if I was doing that these
days, because it wasn't robustenough and we rolled it out as
we did in those days because thechief said it was a good idea.
(06:32):
We rolled it out without thatkind of robustness.
It probably did make adifference.
I mean, it was not without itsmerits and it was an attempt by
the force to frame itself aroundtrying to deal with with demand
by getting becoming moreproduct and we tried to
accompany it.
Because I then got a second jobwhich was to effectively to
create a kind of hotspotstrategy by.
But we were using pin maps andthat was faintly that became
(06:56):
faintly ridiculous because youknow 1984 pin maps.
I had boxes and boxes of thesebloody pins.
I was sticking them onto mapsof uh of, in particular in the
centre of Southampton, and therewas a fair amount of that.
The trouble was you createdthese like Krakatoa-like
volcanoes of pins upon pins and,as I wrote in the report, that
was the you know was endeavouredto try and direct the force.
(07:17):
We could really do with acomputer, but we had a computer.
It had about, it had about 24Kno, I know how it was.
Intro - Outro (07:24):
All the floppy disks.
You remember those, I know.
Peter Neyroud (07:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think we were stillputting telephones into cups and
listening to that awfulsqueaking noise.
But the main point about it was, just as a lesson, that hotspot
policing has come of agebecause of the power of
computing.
We just couldn't do it in thatway.
We could do somethingapproximating, but we couldn't
do that kind of computing.
We just couldn't do it in thatway.
Intro - Outro (07:45):
We could do something approximating, but we
couldn't do that kind of thing.
You know, I want to say itstrikes me, when you're talking
about pin maps and Bill Brattontalks about that and the genesis
of CompStat and all of thosekinds of things, that it's
pretty soon.
When you're doing that, whatyou're defining is hotspots,
policing and, as you said, itjust gets bigger and bigger and
you're running out of spaces toput pins.
But that certainly did tell youlike maybe we should be paying
attention to that spot.
Peter Neyroud (08:04):
What it definitely did was it started to
get us into the territory thatis now commonplace, which is
that it's not just the fact thatthere's a lot of activity going
on in that place, that it iswhat is under that activity,
what's the what is physicallygoing on.
And I did spend quite a lot oftime physically walking the
ground where the pins wereclustered and you know the
(08:28):
ground where the pins wereclustered and you know again,
I'd read the early Goldsteinwork and problem-oriented
policing was not a fully formedand functioning approach in 1984
, but we were heading in thatbroad, general direction of
thinking about, and most of itwas unsurprisingly to do with
licensed premises liquorlicensed premises where the
failure to manage the clienteleeffectively and also the places
(08:51):
where people were coming on toafter they'd drunken, the early
evening premises and wereheading to the late night ones,
the failure to manage itproperly and for failure,
frankly, by the police and thelocal authority to manage it
properly, were the key issues.
And to some extent I think theproject did help us to get a
little bit ahead of that.
And then I got a job.
As I got promoted, I got throughthe Accelerated Promotion
(09:12):
Scheme, so I became a very youngsergeant and I got given the
job of sorting out theunlicensed drinking
establishments and the drugdealing.
So I then spent a merry 18months doing what Larry Sherman
would call crackdowns on a bigscale, including one glorious
evening where I worked out howto get into the Hell's Angels
(09:34):
house, they being one of the bigdrug dealing gangs at the time.
Same here, yeah, they had afortified house which nobody
actually dared to get into.
I went and borrowed a telegraphpole from British Telecom which
had the ability of basicallyacting like a medieval ram, and
we blew the back door off withsuch vigor that it took the
(09:56):
front door out as well.
And you know, that was it.
Intro - Outro (10:02):
I've been to one of those places.
They are fortified for sure.
Peter Neyroud (10:07):
Yes, I've been to one of those places.
They are fortified for sure.
I still remember to this daythe then leader of that
particular gang.
He was stood in the kitchen.
He hadn't spotted us creepingup with this bloody great thing.
We hit the back door with suchforce and it vanished down the
corridor.
And he was still stood there aswe came in with a piece of
toast moving towards his mouththat never quite got there, just
as we nicked him so it was.
That was a, but the key part ofthat actually was a strategy of
(10:31):
crackdown and and with somegreat support and leadership,
and that was a big part of it isthat I got caught.
I got, you know, I had asuperintendent he was actually a
hong kong superintendent whowas on attachment, because we we
had a lot of Hong Kong staffand his whole approach was to
give you a clear, brief um, giveyou support, and when it got
(10:53):
sticky, he was there at myshoulder and and he was, he was,
and I felt very, verysupportive.
I felt I had a a clear, a clearmission, um, and boy did I
carry it out, um, and we did.
You know, I can't say that wecleared everything out, but we
certainly, certainly suppresseda great deal of the illegal
activity.
Intro - Outro (11:12):
When you do those things, you get your attention.
But there's a couple of thingsI've written down, because
Trojanowitz work and I had thethe honor of being with Bob and
I thought he was going to chairmy dissertation and he passed,
unfortunately.
But way back into the 90s forus, I was starting to pay
attention to community policingand of course, in the 2000s what
happened was we stopped payingattention to community policing
(11:34):
because we have to worry aboutterrorism.
The problem was that communitypolicing did great stuff for
terrorism because it helped toknow who's not supposed to be
there.
But I think about this asyou're talking.
By the way, we're talking toPeter Nehru.
He is a former chief constableof Thames Valley.
Say that for me Thames, Is itThames, Thames?
Peter Neyroud (11:55):
You don't need a T Well yeah like the Nehru,
without the D.
Intro - Outro (12:00):
So Thames Valley and now at Cambridge, but I
think about broken windows, thework that was done, I think
about quality of life, crimesand dealing with those, and it
sounds like you were at theinfancy of these approaches, as
you were trial and error,without evidence, necessarily.
And of course, now that bringsyou to the work that you're
(12:21):
talking about and you're aproponent for evidence-based
policing.
How did that begin, the workthat you were doing, the trust
they were giving you to go andgive this a shot, peter, as a
young buck, and how it evolved,and how it has not yet evolved,
because we resist the idea ofevidence-based, but there's
(12:42):
evidence-based medicine.
I think we could learn a lot.
So so tell me about that.
How did you end up sort ofmorphing or helping
organizations morph?
Peter Neyroud (12:52):
Well, I'd always read the literature.
I'd always read it and, and youknow, shortly after this point,
when I, you know, I become aninspector and I did my first
master's degree.
And I did a master's degree atthe local, at the local
university, portsmouth, and thatwas a kind of opportunity for
me.
(13:12):
That's another big lesson here.
You, you know, in anyprofession, you need a regular
drink at the fountain, you needto know what's going on beyond
your remit.
And that was an importantmoment of refresh.
And it curiously because partlybecause I think that the first
chief I had and my, the secondone, who was definitely my great
(13:35):
mentor, a guy called johnhodnot um, both of them did give
.
If you were good, you got a bitof license and you, you got the
ability to, you know, to, to trysomething.
And I think that ability to letpeople try things and to give
them a bit of give, them a bitof latitude and as well as
support, is incredibly important.
(13:56):
If you want to createinnovation and you want to
create an organization with awith, with a bit of life, to
solve problems, you have to givepeople, you have to give people
, you have to give the, you haveto find the talented people and
give them scope.
I definitely got a lot of scope, I suppose, as I got.
You know, as you get moresenior in the organization and I
(14:17):
did very, very rapidly then ofcourse you've also got more
responsibility and it becomes alittle bit more difficult to
give you quite the latitude thatyou had in the past.
Intro - Outro (14:26):
I'm going to say it's probably at that point in
time where you have to focus onthe macro, the big picture, and
allow others to be yourinnovators.
But, Peter, I want to ask thisquestion, as you moved up quite
rapidly from inspector tosuperintendent, to assistant
chief constable unless you werechief constable right away but
how and what did you do todiscern?
Peter Neyroud (14:50):
who those innovative players were
identifying them early, to givethem the latitude to allow them
to go and try something new, tofail and learn from their
failure well, I think that forthose that actually work
directly for me it was it wasabout, you know, giving them
(15:11):
something that gave a bit oflatitude and seeing whether they
did anything with it.
Um, if, if, if they simply cameback and told you all the
difficulties, then you probablygive them a slightly less in a
limited brief.
If they came back withsolutions, or they've just done
something and got on with it andyou could see the solutions,
then you give them a little bitmore as well as support.
(15:32):
I mean, you again, it's aboutthis balance, about not
overdoing it.
But you, you're, you know, oneof the one of the key skills in
middle and senior leadership isis allowing just giving people
enough scope as well as supportto be able to realize you know
difficult things.
Um, actually, as well aswatching to make sure they don't
(15:56):
overstretch themselves, soactually understanding enough
about their personalcircumstances so that you, you
know you take care of the factthat they've just got a young
child or the all of the sort ofthings that they're going to put
extra pressure on.
Um, and, yeah, I mean,sometimes it's difficult to do
that because you're sohectically busy.
I mean, I had a period of time Iwas, as a, again a very young
(16:19):
superintendent.
I became a detectivesuperintendent, so I'm
investigating homicide, and itwas a.
You know, there was a plan a,which was that I was going to
get mentored into this role byanother colleague, and then that
colleague became very ill.
Uh, another superintendent hada heart attack, another one came
out of a caravan, broke hisknee and was out of commission.
(16:40):
So by the time we got tochristmas there were only the
two of us and we had anincredible run.
We had a serial, we had aserial killer, we had a, we had
a um, a really complex missingperson that turned out to be not
what.
He would have been a serialkiller if we hadn't caught him.
And then, and then I had aterrible case where four
children were murdered by theuncle in the fire and it just
(17:03):
went on for six months.
It was just.
You know, it's just like ablizzard, um, and you get in,
you can get into that spacewhere it's quite you know, it's
quite difficult to be reflective.
You are just doing um, andthere I think really I mean now
having you know, having then, ofcourse, been in the chief
(17:24):
officer position in that is thenoticing that and noticing it
quickly enough to realise justhow much pressure is on.
I mean, we've all watched these, you know the various detective
movies, where it's always thecase they invent these senior
officers who are constantlypestering or expecting
unreasonable things from people.
(17:44):
And that's not been myexperience at all.
My experience has been, I mean,notably, my greatest mentor,
john, I don't know.
I mean, this is christmas eveand I'm on.
I'm on call and I've had a hellof a bloody week I mean, we
really have had a hell of a weekand he just sat down alongside
me, he didn't say anything, hejust he went.
He actually brought a cup ofcoffee with him, so he put the
(18:06):
coffee down beside me and hejust sat there and waited for
the moment to speak.
And then he looked at thescreen and he said so what are
you looking at?
And actually, as it happened, Iwas looking at a case on the
screen with a young woman whohadn't arrived in Fordingbridge
in Hampshire.
She'd come for Christmas.
(18:26):
She was coming from a family inBurgundy and she'd come for
Christmas.
And I was looking at thisthinking I'm tired and I'm just.
My anxiety about this case isbeginning to grow as I read down
it.
And so John read it and heturned to me and he said she's
dead, isn't she?
Intro - Outro (18:46):
Peter, I'm going to say something right now.
What just happened to youhappens to so many police that
we become invested in cases, andwhen we lock them in a box and
it just leaked out of you as itdoes for so many, I can see that
.
So thank you for sharing.
That's a pretty vulnerablemoment.
Peter Neyroud (19:06):
Yeah, I've got a few of those.
That was a hell of a year andthat particular, uh, that
particular moment, that is amoment of support.
You just know that yourcolleague, he might be the chief
constable, but you know thatyou, you know you're gonna,
because, of course, now I'm, I'msat there, tired thinking how
(19:27):
am I going to call what?
Am I there, tired thinking howam I going to call, what am I
going to call here, what am Igoing to do?
And you know, within 10 minuteswe've resolved.
This was, you know, we set amajor incident room up.
We are now into full you know,this is a full homicide inquiry.
And I know I've got his backingand indeed, in the following
few days, he and the deputychief constable so these are the
(19:51):
two most senior people in alarge police agency have pitched
up at the major instrument roomon our helping taking the calls
.
That's great leadership andit's so unusual, isn't?
Intro - Outro (20:03):
it.
That's great leadership, andit's so unusual, isn't it?
Peter Neyroud (20:07):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean it was a fantasticlesson to me because, you know,
within months I'm an assistantchief and I'm trying to do the
same thing in another place andyou don't forget those lessons.
You really don't.
Intro - Outro (20:32):
And they're not forced upon you, right?
They just happen.
They're organic.
I want to interrupt you.
I hearken back to a couple ofthings.
I've been writing so manythings down, so let's go back
for a moment.
In a lot of ways, I think someof the work that we do as
leaders is similar to beingparents, and that is.
At some point in time, you'vegot to let your kids go.
You've got to trust them right,you've got to let them go.
(20:53):
You've got to check in on them,watch them and guide them, but
let them make some mistakes ontheir own, as long as they're
not fatal and most of themaren't.
And that's the same with people.
I think policing in a lot ofways is fearful of failure, and
yet failure is a human condition.
We go through that.
That's how we learn.
I see your head shaking.
Talk about that.
Peter Neyroud (21:12):
Well, I mean it's failure in two ways that are
important.
I mean, you know, you are onlygoing to learn whether
something's going to work bytesting it.
I mean, in my term,scientifically now testing it.
And the expectation every timeyou test something it's actually
going to work is is purerbecause and in fact in many ways
(21:33):
you, you want to know thethings that don't work, and that
same applies to you know someof the big, some of the big
projects, which is why the wisedo not do big bang.
They test a bit and you knowand feel the failure a bit, feel
the place, places where thingsare not working effectively.
I mean not the least of which,if I'm just trying to think of
(21:54):
some of the sort of biggerchanges that I've introduced.
Intro - Outro (21:56):
Well, how about the national police college?
I mean, I I want to talk to you.
Peter Neyroud (22:01):
That's a big one, right yeah, well, I mean, first
off that.
So right, so let's let's justwind the clock back a bit and
explain.
Explain what we were trying todo at that stage.
So I'm a chief in Thames Valleyand the government is looking
to make to make some reallyquite significant reforms of
(22:22):
policing in the UK, and myarguments to them was that they
had no mechanism to do that.
There was nothing.
I mean, we had a not very goodleadership agency called Centrex
and a pretty appallingtechnology organisation called
PETO.
Its initials were supposed to bePolice Information Technology
(22:42):
Organisation, but all of us knewit as Poor Implementation,
terrible Operation, and actuallywhat we needed was an
organization that could coulddrive change across, or support
change across the whole countrywhen and you need three things
to do that you need people,processes and technology to make
big change.
And what I proposed to thegovernment was that we created
(23:05):
an agency to do that.
And then, uh, eventually Ithink at the last I was in the
last hour of the closer of theapplications that the home
secretary rang me and said wewere rather expecting you would
apply to do that.
So I did, and I, what I createdwas an agency called the
national policing improvementagency, which was the uk's first
.
You know effectively nationalpolice headquarters, and we
(23:29):
tried to bring together all ofthose people, processes and
technology into a single agency.
It was an extremely hard thingto do.
Working in central governmentis many times more difficult
than working in local government.
Intro - Outro (23:53):
There are so many stakeholders and so many people
who want to want to, you know,take a piece of you.
Um, that it is.
It's extremely thirsty workfrom that point of view.
May I ask this what may I?
And I want to interrupt bysaying we're talking to peter
peter nero.
He is sitting at his home innear cambridge university in the
uk.
But was it in your mind as youwere watching this pushback, the
resistance to change what'swrong with the way we're doing
(24:13):
things?
Why is Nehru trying to makethese changes?
Peter Neyroud (24:19):
Oddly enough no it wasn't.
I mean, there are a whole seriesof things because we're trying
to make change in 43, well,nearer 50 policing agencies
actually, but 43 particularlylocal agencies there are.
You know, an average agenciesabout is between two and a half
and 3,000 sworn officers andabout 1,500 to 1,800 civilian or
(24:42):
support staff.
So you know, organisations ofabout 5, 5000 with a budget of
about, at that stage, about 300million, and you're each one of
them, of course, have got theirown ambitions and their own
relationships and I'm trying tocreate a consistent approach to
things like neighborhoodpolicing, to what we call
(25:03):
workforce modernization, whichwas effectively efficiency in
the workforce, and to technologyand in a range of other there
were a whole range of otherthings, but those were the three
.
Those were the three big ones.
The neighbor policing was toughbut achievable because we had a
, we had a pretty clear idea ofwhat we were trying to do and we
(25:23):
had good evidence.
We'd actually evaluated the thepilots in that case and I guess
that the pushback was the levelof detail that we wanted them
to respond to.
So we you know they weregetting money for this by the
way, they're getting, you know,a significant amount of money
but so we had at least got a alittle bit of a lever support.
That Workforce modernisationwas a bit more difficult because
(25:45):
it was a little bit woolier asto exactly what we were trying
to do.
But what we were effectivelytrying to do was to encourage
them to put out into the fieldas many of their sworn officers
as possible and to get the backoffice and support functions
either civilianized oroutsourced, as in.
(26:06):
We're trying to focus as muchof the sworn effort into
operational policing as we could.
Intro - Outro (26:11):
So at that point in time, was it as it is in the
United States, that many of theancillary jobs were handled by
sworn officers and, in your mind, not always necessary?
Get some specialists in thereto do it.
Peter Neyroud (26:25):
Yeah, it was the first thing I did in Thames
Valley.
I knew I didn't have enough ofa workforce out in the field, so
I redeployed 440 jobs, frombeing sworn officers to being
civilian.
Intro - Outro (26:39):
That must have pissed a few people off at first
.
Huh Like, what do you mean?
I'm going back in the field.
Peter Neyroud (26:44):
Being a chief is not a popularity contest.
Yes, sometimes you have to dothings that people don't want.
I mean, the most importantthing to do, in my view, with
that sort of thing is to beclear what it is that you're
doing and communicate why you'redoing it and why it's important
to do it.
Yes, you're doing it and whyit's important to do it.
Yes, and also, whateverpromises you give to the members
(27:05):
, if you say to members of staff, you know we will support you,
then you absolutely have tofollow through on each one of
those, because everyone that youdon't do that for becomes a
narrative that undermines yourpersonal legitimacy and the
people's trust in you.
So you have to follow throughand therefore you have to be you
know, have to pay attention tothat.
Um, I think we did it reasonablywell.
(27:25):
I can't guarantee that it wasperfect, but we did manage to
get the.
You know the nature and theshape of the force change and
what I was trying to do with thenational policing improvement
agency on the workforcemodernizations, to replicate
that and a bit more, and to alsoto look at big processes.
I mean, essentially all policeforces do similar things, from
(27:46):
handing people in custody tocall management to um, to
prosecuting people.
They all do similar, allsimilar processes and trying to
get them to be done in a in asefficient a way as possible,
because, at the end of the day,money is never plentiful in
policing, wherever you are, atwhatever time, and indeed, if it
were, when we'd probably wasteit.
So you need to be, you know,you need to be careful and
(28:08):
cautious was?
Intro - Outro (28:10):
was some?
I don't mean to interrupt you,but was some of the?
Was some of the resistance, uh,that you know?
Don't tell me what to do.
Give me some guidance and letme customize it for my
organization.
I'm sure that was yourintention, but was it read
differently?
Peter Neyroud (28:27):
Yeah, that was.
I mean, it was the.
Yeah, some of it was, that wasthe.
You know, this is my, this ismy fiefdom and you know, don't
tell me how to run it.
And I was always, I think, abit of an outsider in rather
than an insider.
I was always, I think, a bit ofan outsider rather than an
insider, if you know what I mean.
I always felt that I waslooking from the outside into my
(28:47):
organization, and that'sprobably quite an important
thing to be able to do if you'rean innovator is to get that
outside perspective, and thatprobably meant for some that I
was a bit more threatening thanI might have been otherwise.
Intro - Outro (29:01):
Well.
So I want to ask this because Ithink this is important.
I love where you're going withthis and it sounds to me like
we're walking down history lane.
You know, part of the thingsthat you would write in your
book would be some of theresistance or some of the
reluctance maybe not resistancebut reluctance that you had to
overcome over time, but itsounds to me like you were.
(29:24):
So I think this is an importantquestion when did you look
outside of policing to findinspiration for ideas that might
transfer into policing?
Because it seems to me thatbusiness, healthcare, government
in some cases, are trying newthings that are resisted at
(29:44):
first by policing.
Look, we're a very reluctantand resistant organization and
yet we change on a dime if wehave to right, if the law
changes, we change right.
So we say we're resistant, butwe're really not Fair statement.
Peter Neyroud (29:59):
Yeah and yeah, I think it's a very fair statement
.
I mean I'm thinking Fairstatement, yeah and yeah, I
think it's a very fair statement.
I mean I think we take the.
You know, how quickly didpolicing move and adapt to the
challenges of COVID?
It was extremely fast.
I mean we can come back to that.
But there was some shortfalls,considerable shortfalls in terms
of some of the protection thatwas applied, but in terms of the
(30:20):
ability to completelyreconfigure the business very
rapidly, it was done.
I.
I would say I.
It wasn't so much that Iencountered, uh, it wasn't
resistance in the, in a you know, we're not going to do that in
etc.
It wasn't.
That wasn't the issue.
It was more a sort of well, itvaried.
I mean, obviously there weresome, but it was more the um.
You know, can you help me as tohow to you?
(30:41):
You know how do I put this intoplace?
You know, can you, can you, canyou find a way for me to
succeed in doing this?
And it was more trying to find astyle of business for the, for
the set, for the national agency, that was supportive and
encouraging, but and also tryingto find as many um wins so that
(31:04):
police forces could be seen aswinning.
Uh, if you know, if they thinkthey are and can demonstrate
that they are one of the youknow the leaders of a particular
area, that's good for the brand, it's good for the you know,
for the internal sense ofpurpose, uh, and you know,
managing to make as many of themas winners and create
coalitions of winners, I thinkis the way to get these things
(31:27):
moving.
It is quite challenging to do,but you know you will get.
I mean, certainly withneighbourhood policing we
definitely managed to createthat sense of collective and we
saw phenomenal changes in publicconfidence and perceptions of
visibility for the first time.
The figures but those figureswere going in the right
direction after you know, youknow generation, almost where
(31:49):
they've been heading, headingsouth rather than north.
So it was a.
You know you can make a, make amajor, major difference if you
that had to be valid, that hadto be validating for you, though
, to see those things that werehappening over time.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I've got oneof my pictures.
(32:10):
On the wall is a thing you knowis a chart that Tony Blair sent
to me, signed with best wishes,and it basically is showing the
figures, going in the rightdirection, saying you know,
basically you did this.
That is a yeah, yes, of courseit is.
I mean, it's a major, it was amajor part of what we were
trying to do.
Intro - Outro (32:29):
But I mean, I know you, we wanted to start
down technology, but I want toask you this and, by the way,
we're talking to Peter Nehru, heis in Cambridge, at Cambridge
university and a former chiefconstable at a major police
service in the UK and very, veryinteresting.
I have a couple of questions.
But at what point in time?
As you were making the move andthe moves and, by the way, I
(32:50):
know these weren't unilateraland they weren't done by
yourself you had to have plentyof people to jump on board with
you.
I understand all of that, butat what point in time did you
step back?
Because I think this is it.
(33:16):
Let's go back to what you saidwhen you were in the middle of
homicide investigations.
You become consumed by thatthat you have a.
What are we missing?
What do we have to do to re,almost refocus the organization?
To make sure?
I'll say this about COVID here.
I was an academic chair.
You know what that is like, andwe became again consumed with
what are we going to do?
(33:37):
We have to put people online.
How are we going to modify this?
What are we can't be in classanymore.
How are we going to change themodality?
Are we can't be in classanymore.
How are we going to change themodality?
And at one point in time, sevenor eight months down the road,
I'm thinking we have lost ourway.
We're not focused on the future, we're focusing on today.
How do we get back to future?
Focus, right.
(33:57):
I see you shake your head, butI but I also wonder I know I'm
throwing a lot, lot at you,peter, but you're making me
think and I appreciate thatultimately, your both concern
and belief in evidence-basedpolicing.
At what point in time did yousay how do we see if that's
working?
The neighborhood policing?
How do we, how do we createopportunities to show?
(34:21):
Here's what we did.
Here are the outcomes, here'sthe evidence.
Peter Neyroud (34:28):
Well, in a sense I'd always, all the way through
my career, believed in evidence.
I obviously got moretechnically expert at knowing,
you know, good evidence from badevidence, but I'd always been
interested.
I mean, even when I joke about,you know, a history degree
(34:50):
being the perfect preparationfor designing a policing scheme.
But oddly enough, you know, thedegree did discipline me to
look for the best sources andthe best evidence and that had
always been my framework rightthe way through my career.
I mean, these days it'sinformed by a substantial
understanding of social science,research et cetera.
(35:10):
But that had always been myapproach and it was my framing
for the National PolicingImprovement Agency that we would
be driven by the best evidenceavailable, as Larry put it in
his Police Foundation paper, andquite often, of course, that
evidence when we start talkingabout some of the big changes
that you make in policing.
(35:30):
The evidence isn't always easyto find.
So you know you're trying tomake sure that you've
incorporated, you know, as manyfrom many different sources as
possible.
So you're right about having alook at what's going on in other
sectors, about finding peoplethat you can reasonably trust to
(35:54):
give an informed view and alsoto test them.
So why do you think that?
Where do you get that from?
And also within the policeservice as well, to have, um,
really good informed sources,because evidence-based policing
is not just about the scientificevidence for a particular
tactic.
That's important, but it's not,it's not the only thing.
(36:15):
You you have to have a a reallydeep, you have to have decent
leadership management experienceto be able to contextualize
that.
But in terms of the time andthe place, the type of
organisation that you're tryingto put it in, you have to have
really good data on theorganisation.
So that's often lacking inpolicing.
And you also have to know thestakeholders, whether it be, if
(36:36):
it's national, the nationalpoliticians involved, and
preferably, by the way, not justthe ones that you happen to be
working with because they're inpower, because if you want to
sustain something, you have tohave explained it to the others.
You don't want something thatis you know is here today and
gone tomorrow because there'sbeen an election and it's
changed.
You want things that have gotsome chance of actually lasting
(36:57):
and it get.
Building a consensus is atricky thing to do, but
evidence-based policing dependson that type of approach.
I mean, I suppose you coulddescribe it like climbing
Everest, that each stage youhave a base camp and you have to
establish it and make sure thatit's firmly there.
I'm not a climber, by the way,even though I'm Swiss, but you
(37:21):
have to be careful and proceedby steps and you have to take
the people with you along thatway.
And back to your point aboutwhere do you go for points of
reflection.
I had two or three very closefriends in policing.
They'd either work for me orwith me.
One in particular, my colleaguewho was then the Chief
(37:42):
Inspector of Constabulary, sirDennis Sokono, a very, very
close friend from that point ofview.
Dennis was one of the fewpeople who could tell me the
things that I needed to know atthe right moment, including the
spectacular moment where he wastrying to tell me that we were
producing far too much guidance,far too many written manuals,
etc.
And his approach to that waswicked but actually very
(38:03):
impacted.
So I came back to my office oneevening to find that Dennis had
got his staff to trolley overto my office all of the guidance
that my agency had produced inthe first three years and
basically it went from floor toceiling so that I couldn't
actually get into the office andthere was a little note, little
note that said from Dennis withlove or words to that effect,
(38:27):
um, and after I'd phoned him andsaid you know what the?
Uh?
Yeah, he explained you knowthis is this is.
You know it's getting out ofcontrol.
You need to find a way to reinthis back, because I don't think
people are reading this stuff.
And he and he was fundamentallyright, because actually we then
went and tested and it was agood prompt.
We went and tested Do policeofficers read manuals?
(38:50):
Is this stuff useful?
And the answer, of course, isno.
There are a few.
If you're a firearms officer,you've read the firearms manual,
because that's what you'regoing to be held to account of
if you've discharged your weaponin a coroner's court.
But apart from that, thesethings are there for.
(39:10):
They sit on shelves and if youcan see them as they sit on
shelves behind colleagues, theytend to be the ones that have
sat on that same shelf formonths, if not years.
They're quite dusty.
Intro - Outro (39:22):
Well, you know, that's interesting because it
also makes me wonder.
I understand where we inpolicing, or those who have been
in policing, want answers asquick as possible.
Right, tell me what I need toknow today so I can put it in
practice today, and don't makeme read through dense material.
And that goes to talking aboutaction, research and
(39:42):
translational research andcreation of checklists, because,
look, we're in a bullet society, right, you know that you, I'm
sure in your teaching or yourreading, I say stop giving me
bullets.
Maybe create some bullets so Iunderstand what I'm about to
read, but make, break it downfor me and now give me some
(40:03):
support in text.
So I'm sure that's what he wassaying and being very blunt
about it and very and veryhonest and forthright to say
look at all the shit you havecreated.
Do you know how much?
Here's the thing, do you knowhow much it cost us to print
this Peter?
Peter Neyroud (40:27):
this peter.
Well yeah, let alone to read it.
I mean the the.
I mean I suppose that it hadcome to a bit of a culmination,
because the way that thisguidance was produced in british
policing at that stage wasdiscrete committees of the
association of chief policeofficers and that they've just
been this.
They found they've got myagency and we were the sort of
the reproducer of all of thisstuff and the result of that was
we got a 300 page manual onmounted police which included
(40:48):
pictures of horseshoes, which Ithought was great.
I mean really.
These are the kinds ofhorseshoes that will work right,
yeah, but the final thing thatmade me think what on earth are
we doing here was to receivemore than 100 pages of the
police cycling manual.
You know it almost included the.
You know, how do you get on apolice on a cycle?
(41:10):
I mean you thought, I mean,really, do we need a manual on
cycling?
No, you just, if you want toissue a cycle to officers, then
issue a cycle.
That really isn't, they'llfigure it out.
Steve Morreale (41:19):
they'll figure it out.
Trial and error I fell down.
Trial and error I fell down.
I can't do that Right.
Peter Neyroud (41:24):
You know it had become.
It had you laugh about it.
It had become faintlyridiculous and actually what it
missed was that there were a fewthat were absolutely
fundamental.
I was responsible, by the way,for the police firearms manual
for the UK, along with the teamthat was working to me when I
was a deputy chief constable inWest Mercia, and it's still
pretty much the manual and itwas a really quite short I mean
(41:44):
there is not.
There's, you know, there'sbasically six chapters to it.
They're all in the publicdomain.
What sort of decision we madeat the at the time was to
publish it, which I'd say mycolleagues were not happy with,
but I thought it was important.
It was transparently out thereand that one is read, and it's
because that one is essential.
You do do actually have to haveguidance to do that, yeah, I
understand, but riding a cycleprobably not.
(42:06):
I think we can cope with thatwithout a manual.
Steve Morreale (42:10):
Thanks for listening to The Cop Doc Podcast
with Dr Steve Morreale.
Steve is a retired lawenforcement practitioner and
manager, turned academic andscholar from Worcester State
University.
Please tune into Te Cop DocPodcast for regular episodes of
interviews with thought leadersin policing.
Hey everybody, Steve Morreale here.
Welcome to The CopDoc podcast.
We're about to listen to PeterNeyroud.
Dr.
Peter Neyroud, the former ChiefConstable of Police Service in
the UK.
We split this into two becausewe were able to speak for so
long, and this is session one.
In the first segment, weexplore Dr Neyrpoud's journey
from Oxford, where he was ahistory major, and on to his
(00:23):
unusual entry into policing.
During our conversation, we'llhear about his early innovations
in community policing, hisexperience managing major
investigations and, morerecently, his role in developing
evidence-based practices inBritish policing.
Peter shares his insights aboutthe importance of trust in
leadership and in implementingorganizational change.
(00:46):
With his experience andperspective as both first a
frontline officer and then asenior leader, you'll find that
Peter was responsible for anumber of reforms and
innovations, working for thegovernment, on behalf of the
government and ultimatelycreating the National College of
Policing in the UK.
So stay tuned.
(01:07):
Here is Peter Neyroud andsession one on The CopDoc
Podcast.
This podcast explores policeleadership issues and innovative
ideas.
The CopDoc shares thoughts andideas as he talks with leaders
in policing communities,academia and other government
agencies.
And now please join Dr SteveMorreale and industry thought
(01:32):
leaders as they share theirinsights and experience on the
CopDoc Podcast.
Intro - Outro (01:40):
Hello everybody, steve Morreale coming to you
from Boston, massachusetts, andwe head over the pond to talk to
Peter Neyroud, Dr Peter Neyroud, who is with Cambridge
University.
He's a professor ofevidence-based policing, a
former big shot in policing overin Great Britain, a member of
all kinds.
Actually, there are thingswe're going to be talking about,
(02:01):
Peter, that I'm reading aboutyou, but hello there.
I know it's morning here,afternoon there.
How are you, sir?
Peter Neyroud (02:06):
I'm very well.
I'm very well Getting ready forChristmas.
Intro - Outro (02:08):
Well, thank you and Merry Christmas to you.
As I said before, as we started, we're fluctuating from 15
degrees to 50 degrees, which iscrazy.
Once in a while we get somesnow and then it melts, but
that's just the time of the year, so I'm so happy to have you on
.
I'd love you to start bytelling us your history.
How did you become involved inpolicing?
What the hell were you thinkingwhen you thought I'm going to
(02:29):
go back for a doctorate?
And now you're in academia, apracademic like myself, with
feet in both places, policing,indeed, in academia.
So tell us about yourself.
Peter Neyroud (02:38):
So this is exactly what I'm doing at the
moment.
I'm sat and have been for thelast month or so actually
finally doing something I wantedto do for a long time, which is
actually to write up thatcareer.
But I'm trying to do it in away that makes the connection
between what I've done across 45years, which is a long old time
, and the kind of bigdevelopments in policing across
(03:00):
that period of time, many ofwhich I've realized as I've gone
through, I've been involved in.
So I joined a police service in1980.
I came to it with a degree inmodern history from the
University of Oxford, which is avery fine degree, and I'm still
a passionate historian,including of policing, which I
think is quite often a majorproblem for police officers.
Intro - Outro (03:19):
It's a deficit.
We don't consider our historyand then it repeats itself.
Why?
I hear you Correct.
Peter Neyroud (03:25):
Or we keep muttering platitudes like Peel's
principles, which, given thatPeel was not actually
responsible for them and theyare largely an artifact of the
1930s, made up by a ratherparticularly good historian
called Reith it's a bit likesaying, well, we believe in a
crime policy based about RobinHood, but I joined and I joined.
It was a sort of odd thing todo.
(03:46):
You know, you go to Oxford, youread history in 1980, about the
last place you go is policing,and it came about because, well,
I'd kind of I didn't want to.
There were various things Icouldn't do, by the way, because
I'm a Swiss citizen as well asBritish.
I couldn't be in civil serviceor whatever, because at that
stage you were barred.
So I went casting about forthings to do, got a job in the
car industry, which looked quiteinteresting, until I discovered
(04:07):
the way they treated theirstaff when I went around the
factory, came back, had a drinkwith a fresher I was looking
after, who turned out to be aninspector in Thames Valley
Police, who said well, you couldpick up a police officer.
My response was what on earthwould I want to do that for?
So he took me down to a policestation, to the police station.
Intro - Outro (04:22):
Not in handcuffs.
Not in handcuffs.
Peter Neyroud (04:24):
No, no, no, no.
It was a voluntary attempt,basically.
He left me with a custodysergeant for the night.
I was still there and when thedawn came up and I didn't look
back, I was completelyfascinated.
I know I went and did afour-day sort of vacation course
with the same force with ThamesValley, and then I applied and
I joined Hampshire, which was mylocal police force.
(04:46):
I got sent to a little placecalled Romsey, a young constable
and, just as a sort of clueabout beginning to get used to
this organization, I arrived tofind a cutter, to find my
sergeant at the desk to greet me, who said thank God, we thought
you were Indian Because with mysurname they thought I was
Indian.
But I thought the thank God, wethought you were indian because
with my surname they thought Iwas indian.
But I thought the thank god, wethought you were indian was a
(05:07):
pretty cool message.
Yes, of course.
Yeah, it was a first.
What I got, you know I've gotthrough.
I did, you know, the standardthing that we, all of us do,
that period of learning whereyou're trying to find your way
but it didn't last very longbecause within nine months, I
got asked to go and see thechief constable, which you know
you don't get asked to see thechief constable.
But I did no well, not withoutgetting some very odd looks
(05:29):
around you and I basically gotasked to devise, design, improve
and evaluate a communitypolicing scheme.
So yeah, well, obviously adegree in modern history
prepared you for that actuallywhat I did which I think is
quite important as aconversation between the two of
us is.
I went and read everything Icould find about the
developments in communitypolicing that were going on.
I read Herman Goldstein's firstcontributions.
(05:50):
I read a load of stuff outabout Dallas and Houston and
Chief Brown and the work that hewas doing and a range of
schemes and I thought there issomething here.
What we came up with inHampshire was, I think, one of
the earlier versions of themodern community policing
approach.
The problem was which I don'tthink I necessarily noticed to
(06:11):
quite the extent I should havedone at the time, because
obviously you're a youngconstable and you don't know
this stuff was that we neveractually implemented it properly
.
We just didn't get it out onthe ground and though I
evaluated it, it was not.
I wouldn't call that evaluationnow.
In fact I would have failedmyself if I was doing that these
days, because it wasn't robustenough and we rolled it out as
we did in those days because thechief said it was a good idea.
(06:32):
We rolled it out without thatkind of robustness.
It probably did make adifference.
I mean, it was not without itsmerits and it was an attempt by
the force to frame itself aroundtrying to deal with with demand
by getting becoming moreproduct and we tried to
accompany it.
Because I then got a second jobwhich was to effectively to
create a kind of hotspotstrategy by.
But we were using pin maps andthat was faintly that became
(06:56):
faintly ridiculous because youknow 1984 pin maps.
I had boxes and boxes of thesebloody pins.
I was sticking them onto mapsof uh of, in particular in the
centre of Southampton, and therewas a fair amount of that.
The trouble was you createdthese like Krakatoa-like
volcanoes of pins upon pins and,as I wrote in the report, that
was the you know was endeavouredto try and direct the force.
(07:17):
We could really do with acomputer, but we had a computer.
It had about, it had about 24Kno, I know how it was.
Intro - Outro (07:24):
All the floppy disks.
You remember those, I know.
Peter Neyroud (07:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think we were stillputting telephones into cups and
listening to that awfulsqueaking noise.
But the main point about it was, just as a lesson, that hotspot
policing has come of agebecause of the power of
computing.
We just couldn't do it in thatway.
We could do somethingapproximating, but we couldn't
do that kind of computing.
We just couldn't do it in thatway.
Intro - Outro (07:45):
We could do something approximating, but we
couldn't do that kind of thing.
You know, I want to say itstrikes me, when you're talking
about pin maps and Bill Brattontalks about that and the genesis
of CompStat and all of thosekinds of things, that it's
pretty soon.
When you're doing that, whatyou're defining is hotspots,
policing and, as you said, itjust gets bigger and bigger and
you're running out of spaces toput pins.
But that certainly did tell youlike maybe we should be paying
attention to that spot.
Peter Neyroud (08:04):
What it definitely did was it started to
get us into the territory thatis now commonplace, which is
that it's not just the fact thatthere's a lot of activity going
on in that place, that it iswhat is under that activity,
what's the what is physicallygoing on.
And I did spend quite a lot oftime physically walking the
ground where the pins wereclustered and you know the
(08:28):
ground where the pins wereclustered and you know again,
I'd read the early Goldsteinwork and problem-oriented
policing was not a fully formedand functioning approach in 1984
, but we were heading in thatbroad, general direction of
thinking about, and most of itwas unsurprisingly to do with
licensed premises liquorlicensed premises where the
failure to manage the clienteleeffectively and also the places
(08:51):
where people were coming on toafter they'd drunken, the early
evening premises and wereheading to the late night ones,
the failure to manage itproperly and for failure,
frankly, by the police and thelocal authority to manage it
properly, were the key issues.
And to some extent I think theproject did help us to get a
little bit ahead of that.
And then I got a job.
As I got promoted, I got throughthe Accelerated Promotion
(09:12):
Scheme, so I became a very youngsergeant and I got given the
job of sorting out theunlicensed drinking
establishments and the drugdealing.
So I then spent a merry 18months doing what Larry Sherman
would call crackdowns on a bigscale, including one glorious
evening where I worked out howto get into the Hell's Angels
(09:34):
house, they being one of the bigdrug dealing gangs at the time.
Same here, yeah, they had afortified house which nobody
actually dared to get into.
I went and borrowed a telegraphpole from British Telecom which
had the ability of basicallyacting like a medieval ram, and
we blew the back door off withsuch vigor that it took the
(09:56):
front door out as well.
And you know, that was it.
Intro - Outro (10:02):
I've been to one of those places.
They are fortified for sure.
Peter Neyroud (10:07):
Yes, I've been to one of those places.
They are fortified for sure.
I still remember to this daythe then leader of that
particular gang.
He was stood in the kitchen.
He hadn't spotted us creepingup with this bloody great thing.
We hit the back door with suchforce and it vanished down the
corridor.
And he was still stood there aswe came in with a piece of
toast moving towards his mouththat never quite got there, just
as we nicked him so it was.
That was a, but the key part ofthat actually was a strategy of
(10:31):
crackdown and and with somegreat support and leadership,
and that was a big part of it isthat I got caught.
I got, you know, I had asuperintendent he was actually a
hong kong superintendent whowas on attachment, because we we
had a lot of Hong Kong staffand his whole approach was to
give you a clear, brief um, giveyou support, and when it got
(10:53):
sticky, he was there at myshoulder and and he was, he was,
and I felt very, verysupportive.
I felt I had a a clear, a clearmission, um, and boy did I
carry it out, um, and we did.
You know, I can't say that wecleared everything out, but we
certainly, certainly suppresseda great deal of the illegal
activity.
Intro - Outro (11:12):
When you do those things, you get your attention.
But there's a couple of thingsI've written down, because
Trojanowitz work and I had thethe honor of being with Bob and
I thought he was going to chairmy dissertation and he passed,
unfortunately.
But way back into the 90s forus, I was starting to pay
attention to community policingand of course, in the 2000s what
happened was we stopped payingattention to community policing
(11:34):
because we have to worry aboutterrorism.
The problem was that communitypolicing did great stuff for
terrorism because it helped toknow who's not supposed to be
there.
But I think about this asyou're talking.
By the way, we're talking toPeter Nehru.
He is a former chief constableof Thames Valley.
Say that for me Thames, Is itThames, Thames?
Peter Neyroud (11:55):
You don't need a T Well yeah like the Nehru,
without the D.
Intro - Outro (12:00):
So Thames Valley and now at Cambridge, but I
think about broken windows, thework that was done, I think
about quality of life, crimesand dealing with those, and it
sounds like you were at theinfancy of these approaches, as
you were trial and error,without evidence, necessarily.
And of course, now that bringsyou to the work that you're
(12:21):
talking about and you're aproponent for evidence-based
policing.
How did that begin, the workthat you were doing, the trust
they were giving you to go andgive this a shot, peter, as a
young buck, and how it evolved,and how it has not yet evolved,
because we resist the idea ofevidence-based, but there's
(12:42):
evidence-based medicine.
I think we could learn a lot.
So so tell me about that.
How did you end up sort ofmorphing or helping
organizations morph?
Peter Neyroud (12:52):
Well, I'd always read the literature.
I'd always read it and, and youknow, shortly after this point,
when I, you know, I become aninspector and I did my first
master's degree.
And I did a master's degree atthe local, at the local
university, portsmouth, and thatwas a kind of opportunity for
me.
(13:12):
That's another big lesson here.
You, you know, in anyprofession, you need a regular
drink at the fountain, you needto know what's going on beyond
your remit.
And that was an importantmoment of refresh.
And it curiously because partlybecause I think that the first
chief I had and my, the secondone, who was definitely my great
(13:35):
mentor, a guy called johnhodnot um, both of them did give
.
If you were good, you got a bitof license and you, you got the
ability to, you know, to, to trysomething.
And I think that ability to letpeople try things and to give
them a bit of give, them a bitof latitude and as well as
support, is incredibly important.
(13:56):
If you want to createinnovation and you want to
create an organization with awith, with a bit of life, to
solve problems, you have to givepeople, you have to give people
, you have to give the, you haveto find the talented people and
give them scope.
I definitely got a lot of scope, I suppose, as I got.
You know, as you get moresenior in the organization and I
(14:17):
did very, very rapidly then ofcourse you've also got more
responsibility and it becomes alittle bit more difficult to
give you quite the latitude thatyou had in the past.
Intro - Outro (14:26):
I'm going to say it's probably at that point in
time where you have to focus onthe macro, the big picture, and
allow others to be yourinnovators.
But, Peter, I want to ask thisquestion, as you moved up quite
rapidly from inspector tosuperintendent, to assistant
chief constable unless you werechief constable right away but
how and what did you do todiscern?
Peter Neyroud (14:50):
who those innovative players were
identifying them early, to givethem the latitude to allow them
to go and try something new, tofail and learn from their
failure well, I think that forthose that actually work
directly for me it was it wasabout, you know, giving them
(15:11):
something that gave a bit oflatitude and seeing whether they
did anything with it.
Um, if, if, if they simply cameback and told you all the
difficulties, then you probablygive them a slightly less in a
limited brief.
If they came back withsolutions, or they've just done
something and got on with it andyou could see the solutions,
then you give them a little bitmore as well as support.
(15:32):
I mean, you again, it's aboutthis balance, about not
overdoing it.
But you, you're, you know, oneof the one of the key skills in
middle and senior leadership isis allowing just giving people
enough scope as well as supportto be able to realize you know
difficult things.
Um, actually, as well aswatching to make sure they don't
(15:56):
overstretch themselves, soactually understanding enough
about their personalcircumstances so that you, you
know you take care of the factthat they've just got a young
child or the all of the sort ofthings that they're going to put
extra pressure on.
Um, and, yeah, I mean,sometimes it's difficult to do
that because you're sohectically busy.
I mean, I had a period of time Iwas, as a, again a very young
(16:19):
superintendent.
I became a detectivesuperintendent, so I'm
investigating homicide, and itwas a.
You know, there was a plan a,which was that I was going to
get mentored into this role byanother colleague, and then that
colleague became very ill.
Uh, another superintendent hada heart attack, another one came
out of a caravan, broke hisknee and was out of commission.
(16:40):
So by the time we got tochristmas there were only the
two of us and we had anincredible run.
We had a serial, we had aserial killer, we had a, we had
a um, a really complex missingperson that turned out to be not
what.
He would have been a serialkiller if we hadn't caught him.
And then, and then I had aterrible case where four
children were murdered by theuncle in the fire and it just
(17:03):
went on for six months.
It was just.
You know, it's just like ablizzard, um, and you get in,
you can get into that spacewhere it's quite you know, it's
quite difficult to be reflective.
You are just doing um, andthere I think really I mean now
having you know, having then, ofcourse, been in the chief
(17:24):
officer position in that is thenoticing that and noticing it
quickly enough to realise justhow much pressure is on.
I mean, we've all watched these, you know the various detective
movies, where it's always thecase they invent these senior
officers who are constantlypestering or expecting
unreasonable things from people.
(17:44):
And that's not been myexperience at all.
My experience has been, I mean,notably, my greatest mentor,
john, I don't know.
I mean, this is christmas eveand I'm on.
I'm on call and I've had a hellof a bloody week I mean, we
really have had a hell of a weekand he just sat down alongside
me, he didn't say anything, hejust he went.
He actually brought a cup ofcoffee with him, so he put the
(18:06):
coffee down beside me and hejust sat there and waited for
the moment to speak.
And then he looked at thescreen and he said so what are
you looking at?
And actually, as it happened, Iwas looking at a case on the
screen with a young woman whohadn't arrived in Fordingbridge
in Hampshire.
She'd come for Christmas.
(18:26):
She was coming from a family inBurgundy and she'd come for
Christmas.
And I was looking at thisthinking I'm tired and I'm just.
My anxiety about this case isbeginning to grow as I read down
it.
And so John read it and heturned to me and he said she's
dead, isn't she?
Intro - Outro (18:46):
Peter, I'm going to say something right now.
What just happened to youhappens to so many police that
we become invested in cases, andwhen we lock them in a box and
it just leaked out of you as itdoes for so many, I can see that
.
So thank you for sharing.
That's a pretty vulnerablemoment.
Peter Neyroud (19:06):
Yeah, I've got a few of those.
That was a hell of a year andthat particular, uh, that
particular moment, that is amoment of support.
You just know that yourcolleague, he might be the chief
constable, but you know thatyou, you know you're gonna,
because, of course, now I'm, I'msat there, tired thinking how
(19:27):
am I going to call what?
Am I there, tired thinking howam I going to call, what am I
going to call here, what am Igoing to do?
And you know, within 10 minuteswe've resolved.
This was, you know, we set amajor incident room up.
We are now into full you know,this is a full homicide inquiry.
And I know I've got his backingand indeed, in the following
few days, he and the deputychief constable so these are the
(19:51):
two most senior people in alarge police agency have pitched
up at the major instrument roomon our helping taking the calls
.
That's great leadership andit's so unusual, isn't?
Intro - Outro (20:03):
it.
That's great leadership, andit's so unusual, isn't it?
Peter Neyroud (20:07):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean it was a fantasticlesson to me because, you know,
within months I'm an assistantchief and I'm trying to do the
same thing in another place andyou don't forget those lessons.
You really don't.
Intro - Outro (20:32):
And they're not forced upon you, right?
They just happen.
They're organic.
I want to interrupt you.
I hearken back to a couple ofthings.
I've been writing so manythings down, so let's go back
for a moment.
In a lot of ways, I think someof the work that we do as
leaders is similar to beingparents, and that is.
At some point in time, you'vegot to let your kids go.
You've got to trust them right,you've got to let them go.
(20:53):
You've got to check in on them,watch them and guide them, but
let them make some mistakes ontheir own, as long as they're
not fatal and most of themaren't.
And that's the same with people.
I think policing in a lot ofways is fearful of failure, and
yet failure is a human condition.
We go through that.
That's how we learn.
I see your head shaking.
Talk about that.
Peter Neyroud (21:12):
Well, I mean it's failure in two ways that are
important.
I mean, you know, you are onlygoing to learn whether
something's going to work bytesting it.
I mean, in my term,scientifically now testing it.
And the expectation every timeyou test something it's actually
going to work is is purerbecause and in fact in many ways
(21:33):
you, you want to know thethings that don't work, and that
same applies to you know someof the big, some of the big
projects, which is why the wisedo not do big bang.
They test a bit and you knowand feel the failure a bit, feel
the place, places where thingsare not working effectively.
I mean not the least of which,if I'm just trying to think of
(21:54):
some of the sort of biggerchanges that I've introduced.
Intro - Outro (21:56):
Well, how about the national police college?
I mean, I I want to talk to you.
Peter Neyroud (22:01):
That's a big one, right yeah, well, I mean, first
off that.
So right, so let's let's justwind the clock back a bit and
explain.
Explain what we were trying todo at that stage.
So I'm a chief in Thames Valleyand the government is looking
to make to make some reallyquite significant reforms of
(22:22):
policing in the UK, and myarguments to them was that they
had no mechanism to do that.
There was nothing.
I mean, we had a not very goodleadership agency called Centrex
and a pretty appallingtechnology organisation called
PETO.
Its initials were supposed to bePolice Information Technology
(22:42):
Organisation, but all of us knewit as Poor Implementation,
terrible Operation, and actuallywhat we needed was an
organization that could coulddrive change across, or support
change across the whole countrywhen and you need three things
to do that you need people,processes and technology to make
big change.
And what I proposed to thegovernment was that we created
(23:05):
an agency to do that.
And then, uh, eventually Ithink at the last I was in the
last hour of the closer of theapplications that the home
secretary rang me and said wewere rather expecting you would
apply to do that.
So I did, and I, what I createdwas an agency called the
national policing improvementagency, which was the uk's first
.
You know effectively nationalpolice headquarters, and we
(23:29):
tried to bring together all ofthose people, processes and
technology into a single agency.
It was an extremely hard thingto do.
Working in central governmentis many times more difficult
than working in local government.
Intro - Outro (23:53):
There are so many stakeholders and so many people
who want to want to, you know,take a piece of you.
Um, that it is.
It's extremely thirsty workfrom that point of view.
May I ask this what may I?
And I want to interrupt bysaying we're talking to peter
peter nero.
He is sitting at his home innear cambridge university in the
uk.
But was it in your mind as youwere watching this pushback, the
resistance to change what'swrong with the way we're doing
(24:13):
things?
Why is Nehru trying to makethese changes?
Peter Neyroud (24:19):
Oddly enough no it wasn't.
I mean, there are a whole seriesof things because we're trying
to make change in 43, well,nearer 50 policing agencies
actually, but 43 particularlylocal agencies there are.
You know, an average agenciesabout is between two and a half
and 3,000 sworn officers andabout 1,500 to 1,800 civilian or
(24:42):
support staff.
So you know, organisations ofabout 5, 5000 with a budget of
about, at that stage, about 300million, and you're each one of
them, of course, have got theirown ambitions and their own
relationships and I'm trying tocreate a consistent approach to
things like neighborhoodpolicing, to what we call
(25:03):
workforce modernization, whichwas effectively efficiency in
the workforce, and to technologyand in a range of other there
were a whole range of otherthings, but those were the three
.
Those were the three big ones.
The neighbor policing was toughbut achievable because we had a
, we had a pretty clear idea ofwhat we were trying to do and we
(25:23):
had good evidence.
We'd actually evaluated the thepilots in that case and I guess
that the pushback was the levelof detail that we wanted them
to respond to.
So we you know they weregetting money for this by the
way, they're getting, you know,a significant amount of money
but so we had at least got a alittle bit of a lever support.
That Workforce modernisationwas a bit more difficult because
(25:45):
it was a little bit woolier asto exactly what we were trying
to do.
But what we were effectivelytrying to do was to encourage
them to put out into the fieldas many of their sworn officers
as possible and to get the backoffice and support functions
either civilianized oroutsourced, as in.
(26:06):
We're trying to focus as muchof the sworn effort into
operational policing as we could.
Intro - Outro (26:11):
So at that point in time, was it as it is in the
United States, that many of theancillary jobs were handled by
sworn officers and, in your mind, not always necessary?
Get some specialists in thereto do it.
Peter Neyroud (26:25):
Yeah, it was the first thing I did in Thames
Valley.
I knew I didn't have enough ofa workforce out in the field, so
I redeployed 440 jobs, frombeing sworn officers to being
civilian.
Intro - Outro (26:39):
That must have pissed a few people off at first
.
Huh Like, what do you mean?
I'm going back in the field.
Peter Neyroud (26:44):
Being a chief is not a popularity contest.
Yes, sometimes you have to dothings that people don't want.
I mean, the most importantthing to do, in my view, with
that sort of thing is to beclear what it is that you're
doing and communicate why you'redoing it and why it's important
to do it.
Yes, you're doing it and whyit's important to do it.
Yes, and also, whateverpromises you give to the members
(27:05):
, if you say to members of staff, you know we will support you,
then you absolutely have tofollow through on each one of
those, because everyone that youdon't do that for becomes a
narrative that undermines yourpersonal legitimacy and the
people's trust in you.
So you have to follow throughand therefore you have to be you
know, have to pay attention tothat.
Um, I think we did it reasonablywell.
(27:25):
I can't guarantee that it wasperfect, but we did manage to
get the.
You know the nature and theshape of the force change and
what I was trying to do with thenational policing improvement
agency on the workforcemodernizations, to replicate
that and a bit more, and to alsoto look at big processes.
I mean, essentially all policeforces do similar things, from
(27:46):
handing people in custody tocall management to um, to
prosecuting people.
They all do similar, allsimilar processes and trying to
get them to be done in a in asefficient a way as possible,
because, at the end of the day,money is never plentiful in
policing, wherever you are, atwhatever time, and indeed, if it
were, when we'd probably wasteit.
So you need to be, you know,you need to be careful and
(28:08):
cautious was?
Intro - Outro (28:10):
was some?
I don't mean to interrupt you,but was some of the?
Was some of the resistance, uh,that you know?
Don't tell me what to do.
Give me some guidance and letme customize it for my
organization.
I'm sure that was yourintention, but was it read
differently?
Peter Neyroud (28:27):
Yeah, that was.
I mean, it was the.
Yeah, some of it was, that wasthe.
You know, this is my, this ismy fiefdom and you know, don't
tell me how to run it.
And I was always, I think, abit of an outsider in rather
than an insider.
I was always, I think, a bit ofan outsider rather than an
insider, if you know what I mean.
I always felt that I waslooking from the outside into my
(28:47):
organization, and that'sprobably quite an important
thing to be able to do if you'rean innovator is to get that
outside perspective, and thatprobably meant for some that I
was a bit more threatening thanI might have been otherwise.
Intro - Outro (29:01):
Well.
So I want to ask this because Ithink this is important.
I love where you're going withthis and it sounds to me like
we're walking down history lane.
You know, part of the thingsthat you would write in your
book would be some of theresistance or some of the
reluctance maybe not resistancebut reluctance that you had to
overcome over time, but itsounds to me like you were.
(29:24):
So I think this is an importantquestion when did you look
outside of policing to findinspiration for ideas that might
transfer into policing?
Because it seems to me thatbusiness, healthcare, government
in some cases, are trying newthings that are resisted at
(29:44):
first by policing.
Look, we're a very reluctantand resistant organization and
yet we change on a dime if wehave to right, if the law
changes, we change right.
So we say we're resistant, butwe're really not Fair statement.
Peter Neyroud (29:59):
Yeah and yeah, I think it's a very fair statement
.
I mean I'm thinking Fairstatement, yeah and yeah, I
think it's a very fair statement.
I mean I think we take the.
You know, how quickly didpolicing move and adapt to the
challenges of COVID?
It was extremely fast.
I mean we can come back to that.
But there was some shortfalls,considerable shortfalls in terms
of some of the protection thatwas applied, but in terms of the
(30:20):
ability to completelyreconfigure the business very
rapidly, it was done.
I.
I would say I.
It wasn't so much that Iencountered, uh, it wasn't
resistance in the, in a you know, we're not going to do that in
etc.
It wasn't.
That wasn't the issue.
It was more a sort of well, itvaried.
I mean, obviously there weresome, but it was more the um.
You know, can you help me as tohow to you?
(30:41):
You know how do I put this intoplace?
You know, can you, can you, canyou find a way for me to
succeed in doing this?
And it was more trying to find astyle of business for the, for
the set, for the national agency, that was supportive and
encouraging, but and also tryingto find as many um wins so that
(31:04):
police forces could be seen aswinning.
Uh, if you know, if they thinkthey are and can demonstrate
that they are one of the youknow the leaders of a particular
area, that's good for the brand, it's good for the you know,
for the internal sense ofpurpose, uh, and you know,
managing to make as many of themas winners and create
coalitions of winners, I thinkis the way to get these things
(31:27):
moving.
It is quite challenging to do,but you know you will get.
I mean, certainly withneighbourhood policing we
definitely managed to createthat sense of collective and we
saw phenomenal changes in publicconfidence and perceptions of
visibility for the first time.
The figures but those figureswere going in the right
direction after you know, youknow generation, almost where
(31:49):
they've been heading, headingsouth rather than north.
So it was a.
You know you can make a, make amajor, major difference if you
that had to be valid, that hadto be validating for you, though
, to see those things that werehappening over time.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I've got oneof my pictures.
(32:10):
On the wall is a thing you knowis a chart that Tony Blair sent
to me, signed with best wishes,and it basically is showing the
figures, going in the rightdirection, saying you know,
basically you did this.
That is a yeah, yes, of courseit is.
I mean, it's a major, it was amajor part of what we were
trying to do.
Intro - Outro (32:29):
But I mean, I know you, we wanted to start
down technology, but I want toask you this and, by the way,
we're talking to Peter Nehru, heis in Cambridge, at Cambridge
university and a former chiefconstable at a major police
service in the UK and very, veryinteresting.
I have a couple of questions.
But at what point in time?
As you were making the move andthe moves and, by the way, I
(32:50):
know these weren't unilateraland they weren't done by
yourself you had to have plentyof people to jump on board with
you.
I understand all of that, butat what point in time did you
step back?
Because I think this is it.
(33:16):
Let's go back to what you saidwhen you were in the middle of
homicide investigations.
You become consumed by thatthat you have a.
What are we missing?
What do we have to do to re,almost refocus the organization?
To make sure?
I'll say this about COVID here.
I was an academic chair.
You know what that is like, andwe became again consumed with
what are we going to do?
(33:37):
We have to put people online.
How are we going to modify this?
What are we can't be in classanymore.
How are we going to change themodality?
Are we can't be in classanymore.
How are we going to change themodality?
And at one point in time, sevenor eight months down the road,
I'm thinking we have lost ourway.
We're not focused on the future, we're focusing on today.
How do we get back to future?
Focus, right.
(33:57):
I see you shake your head, butI but I also wonder I know I'm
throwing a lot, lot at you,peter, but you're making me
think and I appreciate thatultimately, your both concern
and belief in evidence-basedpolicing.
At what point in time did yousay how do we see if that's
working?
The neighborhood policing?
How do we, how do we createopportunities to show?
(34:21):
Here's what we did.
Here are the outcomes, here'sthe evidence.
Peter Neyroud (34:28):
Well, in a sense I'd always, all the way through
my career, believed in evidence.
I obviously got moretechnically expert at knowing,
you know, good evidence from badevidence, but I'd always been
interested.
I mean, even when I joke about,you know, a history degree
(34:50):
being the perfect preparationfor designing a policing scheme.
But oddly enough, you know, thedegree did discipline me to
look for the best sources andthe best evidence and that had
always been my framework rightthe way through my career.
I mean, these days it'sinformed by a substantial
understanding of social science,research et cetera.
(35:10):
But that had always been myapproach and it was my framing
for the National PolicingImprovement Agency that we would
be driven by the best evidenceavailable, as Larry put it in
his Police Foundation paper, andquite often, of course, that
evidence when we start talkingabout some of the big changes
that you make in policing.
(35:30):
The evidence isn't always easyto find.
So you know you're trying tomake sure that you've
incorporated, you know, as manyfrom many different sources as
possible.
So you're right about having alook at what's going on in other
sectors, about finding peoplethat you can reasonably trust to
(35:54):
give an informed view and alsoto test them.
So why do you think that?
Where do you get that from?
And also within the policeservice as well, to have, um,
really good informed sources,because evidence-based policing
is not just about the scientificevidence for a particular
tactic.
That's important, but it's not,it's not the only thing.
(36:15):
You you have to have a a reallydeep, you have to have decent
leadership management experienceto be able to contextualize
that.
But in terms of the time andthe place, the type of
organisation that you're tryingto put it in, you have to have
really good data on theorganisation.
So that's often lacking inpolicing.
And you also have to know thestakeholders, whether it be, if
(36:36):
it's national, the nationalpoliticians involved, and
preferably, by the way, not justthe ones that you happen to be
working with because they're inpower, because if you want to
sustain something, you have tohave explained it to the others.
You don't want something thatis you know is here today and
gone tomorrow because there'sbeen an election and it's
changed.
You want things that have gotsome chance of actually lasting
(36:57):
and it get.
Building a consensus is atricky thing to do, but
evidence-based policing dependson that type of approach.
I mean, I suppose you coulddescribe it like climbing
Everest, that each stage youhave a base camp and you have to
establish it and make sure thatit's firmly there.
I'm not a climber, by the way,even though I'm Swiss, but you
(37:21):
have to be careful and proceedby steps and you have to take
the people with you along thatway.
And back to your point aboutwhere do you go for points of
reflection.
I had two or three very closefriends in policing.
They'd either work for me orwith me.
One in particular, my colleaguewho was then the Chief
(37:42):
Inspector of Constabulary, sirDennis Sokono, a very, very
close friend from that point ofview.
Dennis was one of the fewpeople who could tell me the
things that I needed to know atthe right moment, including the
spectacular moment where he wastrying to tell me that we were
producing far too much guidance,far too many written manuals,
etc.
And his approach to that waswicked but actually very
(38:03):
impacted.
So I came back to my office oneevening to find that Dennis had
got his staff to trolley overto my office all of the guidance
that my agency had produced inthe first three years and
basically it went from floor toceiling so that I couldn't
actually get into the office andthere was a little note, little
note that said from Dennis withlove or words to that effect,
(38:27):
um, and after I'd phoned him andsaid you know what the?
Uh?
Yeah, he explained you knowthis is this is.
You know it's getting out ofcontrol.
You need to find a way to reinthis back, because I don't think
people are reading this stuff.
And he and he was fundamentallyright, because actually we then
went and tested and it was agood prompt.
We went and tested Do policeofficers read manuals?
(38:50):
Is this stuff useful?
And the answer, of course, isno.
There are a few.
If you're a firearms officer,you've read the firearms manual,
because that's what you'regoing to be held to account of
if you've discharged your weaponin a coroner's court.
But apart from that, thesethings are there for.
(39:10):
They sit on shelves and if youcan see them as they sit on
shelves behind colleagues, theytend to be the ones that have
sat on that same shelf formonths, if not years.
They're quite dusty.
Intro - Outro (39:22):
Well, you know, that's interesting because it
also makes me wonder.
I understand where we inpolicing, or those who have been
in policing, want answers asquick as possible.
Right, tell me what I need toknow today so I can put it in
practice today, and don't makeme read through dense material.
And that goes to talking aboutaction, research and
(39:42):
translational research andcreation of checklists, because,
look, we're in a bullet society, right, you know that you, I'm
sure in your teaching or yourreading, I say stop giving me
bullets.
Maybe create some bullets so Iunderstand what I'm about to
read, but make, break it downfor me and now give me some
(40:03):
support in text.
So I'm sure that's what he wassaying and being very blunt
about it and very and veryhonest and forthright to say
look at all the shit you havecreated.
Do you know how much?
Here's the thing, do you knowhow much it cost us to print
this Peter?
Peter Neyroud (40:27):
this peter.
Well yeah, let alone to read it.
I mean the the.
I mean I suppose that it hadcome to a bit of a culmination,
because the way that thisguidance was produced in british
policing at that stage wasdiscrete committees of the
association of chief policeofficers and that they've just
been this.
They found they've got myagency and we were the sort of
the reproducer of all of thisstuff and the result of that was
we got a 300 page manual onmounted police which included
(40:48):
pictures of horseshoes, which Ithought was great.
I mean really.
These are the kinds ofhorseshoes that will work right,
yeah, but the final thing thatmade me think what on earth are
we doing here was to receivemore than 100 pages of the
police cycling manual.
You know it almost included the.
You know, how do you get on apolice on a cycle?
(41:10):
I mean you thought, I mean,really, do we need a manual on
cycling?
No, you just, if you want toissue a cycle to officers, then
issue a cycle.
That really isn't, they'llfigure it out.
Steve Morreale (41:19):
they'll figure it out.
Trial and error I fell down.
Trial and error I fell down.
I can't do that Right.
Peter Neyroud (41:24):
You know it had become.
It had you laugh about it.
It had become faintlyridiculous and actually what it
missed was that there were a fewthat were absolutely
fundamental.
I was responsible, by the way,for the police firearms manual
for the UK, along with the teamthat was working to me when I
was a deputy chief constable inWest Mercia, and it's still
pretty much the manual and itwas a really quite short I mean
(41:44):
there is not.
There's, you know, there'sbasically six chapters to it.
They're all in the publicdomain.
What sort of decision we madeat the at the time was to
publish it, which I'd say mycolleagues were not happy with,
but I thought it was important.
It was transparently out thereand that one is read, and it's
because that one is essential.
You do do actually have to haveguidance to do that, yeah, I
understand, but riding a cycleprobably not.
(42:06):
I think we can cope with thatwithout a manual.
Steve Morreale (42:10):
Thanks for listening to The Cop Doc Podcast
with Dr Steve Morreale.
Steve is a retired lawenforcement practitioner and
manager, turned academic andscholar from Worcester State
University.
Please tune into Te Cop DocPodcast for regular episodes of
interviews with thought leadersin policing.
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