Making and Breaking Barriers: Assessing the Value of Mounted Police Units in the UK

Lead Research Organisation: University of Oxford
Department Name: Criminology Centre

Abstract

In this project, we propose to investigate the ways in which mounted police work is experienced in the UK through a unique observational methodology alongside focus groups with police officers and policed citizens. This research will build on current work being undertaken through the University of Oxford on behalf of UK police forces, to build an evidence base on which future strategies and priorities regarding mounted policing can be set. This project is being supported by mounted police units across the UK, and has secured significant financial and in-kind contributions from police partners.

Mounted police - police horses and riders - are used as a tool of public policing around the world. They are used primarily in public-order police work, and are thought to be particularly useful in the pacification of large crowds. They have become a nearly ubiquitous sight at football matches, and they have also been used in more creative deployments including search-and-rescue operations, burglary prevention initiatives, and urban patrols. They represent a symbol of physical force as well as a connection to past eras of policing. They are also among the most poorly-understood tools in modern public police work.

Police on horseback are thought to calm crowds and avert serious instances of disorder. Anecdotal evidence suggests that one horse and rider may be equivalent to six or more officers on foot in some situations. However, in current conditions of austerity, they are under threat of elimination across the UK and these policy decisions are being undertaken without recourse to evidence. Police forces across the UK are considering disbanding their mounted capacities or reducing their contributions to mounted work through amalgamating these units with multiple other forces. The relative costs and savings of these decisions are only vaguely understood at present, since virtually no focused research has ever been conducted on the effectiveness of mounted units. They cannot be easily compared to other forms of police work and there is no empirical basis on which to make claims regarding their utility.

The project's research team is currently involved in initial work with UK police, including literature review and the development of quantitative criteria for measuring the performance of mounted units. However, it is recognized by all project partners that standard measures of police performance, such as arrest statistics, will be inadequate to understand these units' overall value in the relationship of UK police to society. In the research proposed here we are therefore seeking to understand the qualitative aspects of mounted police work, in particular to understand how they are seen by citizens subject to mounted policing.

The core research questions of this project are: How do publics and police experience mounted police work? And, are there situations in which mounted police have special value when compared to similar non-mounted police? Over 12 months, we will address these questions by engaging in systematic observation and focus-group work with police and citizens who have experienced mounted policing. We will engage in ethnographic observations alongside the systematic approach, and will seek input from police forces internationally - such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police - to help situate our research within a broader policing picture.

The research will generate user impact through a report, multiple workshops and a national event for police partners. The project has also received attention in the national media, highlighting the importance of police and horses in UK society. It will also be the first substantive investigation into this aspect of police work, and will be of interest to academic audiences internationally. We intend to produce 2-3 articles for publication in high-quality journals such as Policing and Society and will present our findings at the 2014 British Society of Criminology conference.

Planned Impact

The public-sector impact of this research at the local and national levels will be significant. It will be undertaken in an environment including multiple stakeholders who are actively seeking an evidence-based approach to policy-making regarding mounted police. By developing accounts of police practice alongside examining citizen perspectives on the use of mounted police, the project will create knowledge relevant to multiple audiences including practitioners, policymakers, and civil society groups, as well as to police internationally. It will produce reports and events for dissemination of research to project partners, alongside multiple academic publications.

Dissemination activities with government and police stakeholders are already agreed with project partners, and the project has secured multiple avenues for communicating its findings. The level of police interest in this project is clearly articulated in the attached Letter of Support. The research will be the first of its kind, and therefore will be foundational in shaping future police and strategy decisions in this unique area of police activity.

The project will primarily benefit UK police forces. It will directly address user questions relating to the choices facing UK police agencies regarding the elimination, reduction, or amalgamation and centralization of mounted police units. It will also answer broader questions relating to their specific and general effectiveness in policing tasks, as well as their legitimacy in the eyes of citizens.

The research process has been designed to engage police stakeholders during all phases of the project, and its findings will be directly and immediately applicable to operational decision-making by mounted unit managers and Chief Constables of jurisdictional forces. Many police forces in the UK that do not maintain a mounted capacity nonetheless utilize mounted police through mutual assistance agreements. The research will thus be relevant to police forces with mounted units as well as those without.

The project's findings will also provide grounding for strategic decision-making and priority-setting by Police and Crime Commissioners, local Policing and Crime Panels, and the Home Office regarding the arrangement of mounted police in the UK. The project will be relevant to police internationally where mounted deployments are used including in North America and Europe. The findings should also be of interest to civil society groups such as the Police Foundation who seek to understand the relationships between public police and citizens.

The project will be housed at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, and will be funded in part by Avon and Somerset Constabulary on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers Mounted Working Group. Member forces of the Working Group have committed significant in-kind resources to ensure the research team can collect necessary data, as outlined in the project partner Letter of Support. The project's governance structure includes regular meetings with police partners, ensuring relevance of findings to practitioners and ultimate public-sector impact of the research. The research will create multiple opportunities to maximize dissemination to relevant groups, as outlined in the Pathways to Impact attachment.

Its findings will also likely generate mass media content. Indeed, the current phase at Oxford has already received attention in the Independent, the Daily Mail, the Police Oracle website, Horse and Hound Monthly, and multiple mentions on BBC Radio 4. This coverage suggests that the British public has an active stake in the outcomes of the austerity measures, and hold a strong symbolic attachment to horses as tools of police work. The research will directly engage members of the public for their views through focus group research, and will contribute to an informed public debate on the issues surrounding the future of mounted police activity in the UK.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description This project has constituted the first formal academic investigation into the use of mounted police, certainly in the UK and possibly in the world. Run as a knowledge exchange project in conjunction with Gloucestershire and Avon and Somerset police, the over-arching aim of the project was to provide evidence to contribute to pressing decisions regarding the future of mounted units in the UK. The aim was to consider ways in which the relative value of mounted police work may be measured and understood, as well as provide evidence testing the value of mounted police in various deployment scenarios. The aims of the project have been met, and our police partners will use the research to guide decision-making moving forward (see the narrative impact).

The research undertaken for this project was multi-method and exploratory in nature, and the project has examined mounted police in multiple deployment scenarios including neighbourhood policing, football policing and public order policing in festival and demonstration settings. This project also included research activities designed to understand the costs of mounted policing, and a survey of senior mounted police officers in other countries to understand the potential transferability of these findings.

Our findings coalesce around five main points.

1. While it is often assumed they are primarily a public order resource, mounted police spend substantially more time on neighbourhood-level patrol or supporting local policing than any other area of activity. We conducted a quasi-experiment (that was accompanied by systematic social observation of police patrols) investigating the effect of mounted community patrols on public perceptions of the police. This aspect of the research concluded that in neighbourhood settings, mounted police patrols are associated with higher levels of visibility, trust and confidence in police. Police horses seem to offer a highly symbolic resource that elicits positive responses from many people in neighbourhood settings.

2. In both neighbourhood and peaceful crowd settings, mounted police generate far greater levels of public engagement, by volume over similar time periods, than foot officers. This may have important implications for the types of relationships, both short-term and long-term, police are able to form with members of the public

3. Despite our initial expectations, in demonstration or public disorder settings mounted police do not seem to provide substantial public-engagement value, and their value in these situations appears mostly tactical. In specific instances where coercive crowd control is required, mounted police provide a unique capacity to control crowds that does not have an obvious equivalent amongst other available police tools.

4. Based on our estimates, mounted police cost approximately £6,550 per annum more than officers in other operational support roles (e.g. dog units, armed police units). The total costs of mounted police is however only a very small proportion of the overall police budget - an average of 0.31% in the force areas that maintain mounted units

5. The use of horses in policing is relatively widespread across the developed world, and there are substantial points of commonality between the ways in which mounted police are used in the UK and the ways in which they are used in other countries.
Exploitation Route Our findings are already being used by our police partners in a number of ways, for example to help in resource allocation at various levels within the police service. Findings from the final report will feed into the work of ACPOs 'mounted working group'. Moreover, we have received requests for the final research findings from police in other countries including Australia, Denmark and Germany, for use in supporting organisational reform.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy

Government

Democracy and Justice

Security and Diplomacy

URL http://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/mounted-police-uk.html
 
Description This project has constituted the first in-depth academic investigation in the use of horses in policing. Our findings have already been used to inform work conducted by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), and in particular its 'Mounted Working Group'; and to help inform funding decisions taken by police organisations in the UK and elsewhere. Specifically, findings from the project have been used: - In the development of national guidance on mounted police within the ACPO operational support management area; - To inform moves toward development of a collaborative arrangement between Gloucestershire and Avon and Somerset constabularies for sharing of mounted resources; - Form part of a forthcoming (as of December 2014) presentation by DCC Rod Hansen at the January 2015 National Chief Constables Council; - Provide evidence for decisions on whether to retain or abolish the South Yorkshire police mounted unit; and - Provide evidence that help inform a decision to retain a mounted unit in Western Australia. We hosted a national mounted police symposium in Oxford on the 19th November 2014 to present the findings of the project and launch its final report. This event was be attended by over 100 people: academics; police representatives from the UK and overseas; the College of Policing; Police and Crime Commissioners, Home Office representatives and others involved in the governance of policing. The project has received considerable press attention, with both Giacomantonio and Bradford being interviewed by local television and radio stations across the country. There have also been several reports on the project in the printed media, and on the day of the symposium we were for a while the first listed item on the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30101091). There have also been stories in national newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. All members of the research team are currently involved in bid to the Police Innovation Fund, lead by Gloucestershire and Avon and Somerset Police. This will build on key aspects of the research already conducted, most importantly in relation to developing mounted police as a shared resource between the two forces, and developing a Randomized Controlled Trial to investigate the effect of mounted patrols in crime 'hotspots'.
First Year Of Impact 2014
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy
Impact Types Cultural

 
Description Research cited in reports of decision to introduce and thereafter retain a mounted police unit in Gloucestershire police
Geographic Reach Local/Municipal/Regional 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
URL http://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/news/15496419.Police_on_horses_will_continue_to_be_on_patrol_i...
 
Description Use of evidence generated in this project by Baltimore police to justify expansion of mounted unit
Geographic Reach North America 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
URL http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/baltimore-insider-blog/bs-fe-baltimore-police-horse-slurpee-201...
 
Description JOHN FELL OUP RESEARCH FUND
Amount £2,660 (GBP)
Organisation University of Oxford 
Department John Fell Fund
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2014 
End 11/2014
 
Description Avon and Somerset 
Organisation Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution This was a KE grant, and Avon and Somerset police were named in the original bid. The research team worked with Avon and Somerset, and Gloucestershire Constabulary, throughout the project. The research was responsible for actually conducting the research, although working throughout with our police partners on designing the various aspects of the research project.
Collaborator Contribution Our police partners contributed to the infrastructure of the project throughout - for example, providing police resources for a quasi-experiment investigating the effect of mounted police patrols on public trust and confidence, and paying for the associated survey. These involved provision of mounted patrols in areas which do not normally experience them. Avon and Somerset also funded the expenses of the research team.
Impact The entire project is in a sense an outcome from this collaboration as it would not have taken place without the support of Avon and Somerset.
Start Year 2013
 
Description Gloucestershire Constabulary 
Organisation Gloucestershire Constabulary
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution The research team was responsible for conducting the research that this collaboration enabled, and for delivering the outputs.
Collaborator Contribution Our primary police partner on this project was ACC Rod Hansen, of Gloucestershire police. Thus, while Avon and Somerset provided financial support, we also worked with Gloucestershire police throughout the life of the project. Gloucestershire provided: - Resources of meetings - Liaison with other police organizations - Administrative support - Staff time for all of the above, and to allow Glos. staff to participate in the research process - Direct input into the design of various aspects of the research
Impact The entire projeect is an output of this collaboration - it would not have happened without the support of Glos. police
Start Year 2013
 
Description National mounted police symposium 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Type Of Presentation keynote/invited speaker
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was the national mounted police symposium, held in Oxford on the 19th November 2014, at which we launched the findings of the research. This event was be attended by over 100 people: academics; police representatives from the UK and overseas; the College of Policing; Police and Crime Commissioners, Home Office representatives and others involved in the governance of policing. However the main audience was police officers/practitioners, and there were police from across the UK, Europe, and North America in attendance. As such the likely eventual audience is likely to be far larger - for example, we shared our slides with police from Spain and the Czech Republic.

Discussion during and around the symposium suggested that the research findings had shifted views of the use of mounted units, particularly in relation to the utility of their deployment in neighbourhood settings.

The Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire (which does not have a mounted unit) is now seeking to set up an agreement with Avon and Somerset (which does) to shared mounted resource.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Paper given at the 2015 CEPOL European Police Research & Science Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Paper entitled "Is it just a British thing? Examining the wider European relevance of evidence on the effects of mounted police deployments in the UK" given at the 2015 CEPOL European Police Research & Science Conference. CEPOL is the European Police College, so the audience was mainly practitioners and academics
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://www.cepol.europa.eu/science-research/conferences/2015#presentations
 
Description Paper given at the N8 Policing Research Partnership International Conference - Working with the Police on Policing 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation entitled 'Experiments in policing and the challenges of implementation', which drew on the quasi-experiment conducted during the Making and Breaking Barriers project to explore some of the perils and pitfalls - and avenues for success - associated with experimental research in policing.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Police workshops (England and Scotland) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Participants in your research and patient groups
Results and Impact We held a number of workshops towards the end of the project wherein we presented our emerging findings to groups of police in a number of locations: London, Manchester, Gloucester and the Scottish Police College. This groups contained officers working in mounted units, public order police, and senior officers tasked with allocating resources in various contexts. The intention here was two-fold. First, to present our findings to groups of 'critical friends', who could in a sense validate the research or let us know were we were going wrong. Second, to provide an opportunity for those groups of officers to feed into the research in a more formal sense, for example by pointed out areas of interest we may have missed

We were able both to improve the quality of the final piece of research and highlight its results to police who use or work with mounted police on a day-to-day basis. Several workshop participants indicated they had changed their thinking on the use of mounted police as a result of taking part.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Seminar at the 2015 Cambridge Festival of Ideas 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Seminar at the 2015 Cambridge Festival of Ideas, given jointly by Chris Giacomantonio and our police partner DCC Rod Hansen. The event was broadcast in Australia on the ABC big ideas programme (www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/) and Giacomantonio was also interviewed by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/unlikely-roles-horses-criminal-justice
 
Description Seminar given at the Houses of Parliament as part of a programme of events hosted by the University of Oxford 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Seminar entitled 'Police: Symbolic and Effective Guardians', which drew partly on research from the Making and Breaking Barriers project. Senior police officers, policy makers and others were present, and a lively discussion followed the presentation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016