Use of force by law enforcement officials, including police and correctional officers, is a highly important issue. Yet whilst the situations in which these officials use firearms, and the effects of this use, are relatively well documented and understood, this is not the case with 'less lethal' weapons and 'less lethal' force. (For the purposes of this project, less lethal force, or LLF, includes the use of restraints, empty hand techniques and less lethal weapons. The latter are weapons, such as the electric-shock Taser, pepper spray or batons, intended to subdue or incapacitate rather than cause serious harm or death). There is a recognition amongst academics and practitioners alike that this needs to change. Internationally, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions has expressed the need for more research into LLF, as has the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture. Nationally, a recent article in Forensic Science and Medical Pathology called for research into, and better reporting of, less lethal force in the UK, as did the Experts' Meeting on Taser the PI convened in 2015 with ESRC funds. The National Police Chief's Council (NPCC) and College of Policing have stressed the pressing need for research into LLF, and the Home Secretary has called for more information on police use of less lethal force and has launched a review into Use of Force Reporting (the 'Reporting Review'). At least three key topics around less lethal weapons remain under-researched, and this project will tackle all three directly. First we lack a basic understanding of when, why, on whom, and how often, less lethal weapons are used - and whether certain groups of people (those of a particular gender, ethnic minority, mental health status or geographical origin) are more or less likely to have less lethal force used on them. This project will see the PI work closely with the National Police Chief's Council, the Home Office and UK police forces, utilizing datasets previously unavailable to academic researchers to answer such questions. Such issues are also relevant internationally, as shown by recent debates on police less lethal force in countries as varied as Armenia, Hungary and New Zealand. Second, whilst these weapons are associated with saving lives, they have also been associated with serious injuries and fatalities. In the UK alone, several high profile deaths-including that of Ian Tomlinson and Jordan Begley-have occurred following police use of less lethal weapons. There are key questions around how so called less lethal force can impact the right to life, and their association with fatalities worldwide. Building on my PhD work focusing on injuries associated with Taser, this project will see the PI work with the UN Special Rapporteur to research the impact less lethal force has on the right to life in the UK and globally. Third, if it is important to attend to the situations in which force is used, it is also important to look at how such force is monitored and governed. This requires working with police and government to help understand what data on less lethal force should be gathered and analyzed, and working with the independent oversight bodies that monitor places of detention (including police custody) to ensure that they have the necessary research to enable them to document the LLF used by state authorities. The UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture has highlighted the need for research to assist them in addressing and monitoring less lethal weapons and other physical infrastructure found in places of detention. The PI will work with key decision makers on these issues; with the UK government on reporting, and with oversight bodies via the SPT and its network of over 40 national bodies.

The landscape of where modern slavery and sexual exploitation takes place has changed over the past decade with the onset of digital technologies dominating the organisation of the commercial sex industry. Adult Service Websites, where most sexual services are advertised, negotiated and facilitated in the UK, have been identified as a space where offenders and traffickers can manipulate, entrap, coerce and force individuals into selling sexual services. Whilst the majority of commercial sex interactions are amongst consenting adults and legal, the role of ASWs in facilitating offending behaviour is complicated and least regulated. There are many agencies trying to understand this relationship, with national intelligence services understanding routes to trafficking and the police working to identify victims and target offenders. In addition there are first responders who deliver interventions to victims to assist with treating their crimes seriously and helping individuals move away from exploiters. This project, will for the first time, bring together a range of organisations who are working to prevent modern slavery in ASWs, in an effort to understand, share new knowledge and learning, and work towards strategies and actions plans that can reduce crimes of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The core partners in the project are the National Crime Agency, National Police Chief's Council, and the NGO Unseen. Together we will investigate how ASWs can be at the forefront of preventing modern slavery, what those who use ASWs to sell and buy sex think about the platforms, legislation to govern them and strategies to prevent harm. The design of the project includes survivors who will inform the research process, data analysis and knowledge transfer activities. Capacity building activities are built into the design by implementing a training programme for survivors around research skills, upskilling, employability skills and access to higher education. We plan to develop training for third party businesses around sexual exploitation as well as engage the ASW operators in developing transparent and robust mechanisms to prevent their websites harbouring exploitation. Our work will feed directly into government discussions, APPGs and other forums to bring this contemporary data to the places where modern slavery, sex work and policing are discussed at strategic and operational levels.

The COVID-19 crisis is changing the shape of crime. Drawing on crime science, this research will inform evidence-based policy and practice. Lockdown requires people to stay home, leading to domestic violence and child abuse increases. Yet social distancing means police are arresting fewer suspects: reduced services at time of greater need. COVID-19 gives fraudsters a 'conversation starter' to approach people in-person, via text, email and online. Remote working and online leisure activities, furloughs and financial difficulties, provide more potential targets for online crimes of various types. Vulnerable groups including the elderly and disabled are more at risk. Yet a Harvard study (Kissler et al. Science, 14 April) suggests that, absent a vaccine, social distancing may continue into 2022, perhaps 2024. So we will anticipate crime effects of prolonged, graduated or cyclical exit strategies. We will also anticipate post-crisis scenarios, seeking to sustain declines in crimes like burglary, to avoid them returning to 'normal'. We will use (1) national police data, (2) detailed data from three police partners, (3) fraud and e-crime data from industry, and (4) sources from other agencies such as Childline (for unreported crime). Pre/post-change analysis will use a combination of time-series and spatial modelling. Nesting force-level analysis in the national and international context will allow us to gauge scalability. We have police and industry partners, national (Home office, National Police Chief's Council, College of Policing) and international advisors. The aim is to inform policy and practice, producing 16 deliverables including policy and practice briefings and research articles.

The proposed project provides a near real-time evidence base to inform the police approach to the apparent surge in domestic violence and abuse (DA) triggered by the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK. Police case file data from seven diverse police forces are pooled to track the impact of the pandemic on DA, analysing changes in the risk factors, frequency, nature and profile of DA reported to police. These changes are mapped closely to shifts in the restrictions imposed during lockdown, transitional phases and post lockdown, when DA calls to police are expected to spike. The proposed study is the largest and most rigorous analysis of police DA case file data conducted anywhere in the world to date. The statistical analysis is complemented by regular focused semi-structured phone interviews with police officers, to identify emerging challenges and best practice in the frontline response to DA. The mixed-methods study addresses urgent questions on the impact of Covid-19 on DA, which may have significant implications for the complex task of accurate police risk assessment, victim safeguarding, and criminal prosecution as the Covid-19 pandemic evolves. The Home Office, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), and College of Policing (CoP) are project partners and constitute direct links to critical decision-makers and provide direct routes to impact. A timely and evidence-based development of a police strategy is urgently needed to address the emerging DA crisis and its devastating, long-lasting consequences for victims and their children.

Recent reports from the Royal Society, the government Cybersecurity strategy, as well as the National Cyber Security Center highlight the importance of cybersecurity, in ensuring a safe information society. They highlight the challenges faced by the UK in this domain, and in particular the challenges this field poses: from a need for multi-disciplinary expertise and work to address complex challenges, that span from high-level policy to detailed engineering; to the need for an integrated approach between government initiatives, private industry initiatives and wider civil society to tackle both cybercrime and nation state interference into national infrastructures, from power grids to election systems. They conclude that expertise is lacking, particularly when it comes to multi-disciplinary experts with good understanding of effective work both in government and industry. The EPSRC Doctoral Training Center in Cybersecurity addresses this challenge, and aims to train multidisciplinary experts in engineering secure IT systems, tacking and interdicting cybercrime and formulating effective public policy interventions in this domain. The training provided provides expertise in all those areas through a combination of taught modules, and training in conducting original world-class research in those fields. Graduates will be domain experts in more than one of the subfields of cybersecurity, namely Human, Organizational and Regulatory aspects; Attacks, Defences and Cybercrime; Systems security and Cryptography; Program, Software and Platform Security and Infrastructure Security. They will receive training in using techniques from computing, social sciences, crime science and public policy to find appropriate solutions to problems within those domains. Further, they will be trained in responsible research and innovation to ensure both research, but also technology transfer and policy interventions are protective of people's rights, are compatible with democratic institutions, and improve the welfare of the public. Through a program of industrial internships all doctoral students will familiarize themselves with the technologies, polices and also challenges faced by real-world organizations, large and small, trying to tackle cybersecurity challenges. Therefore they will be equipped to assume leadership positions to solve those problems upon graduation.