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

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.

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.