Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy, Lancaster University

One of the most bothersome things about being sick or having seasonal allergies is that it makes your nose stuffy and blocked. This makes breathing in through your nostrils frustrating – if not altogether impossible.

But even when you aren’t sick, perhaps you’ve noticed that when you take a deep breath, only one of your nostrils seems to be allowing the air in. Before you panic and wonder if you’re coming down with something, what you’re experiencing is actually a normal bodily process.

Multiple times a day, without us even noticing, the nostrils naturally switch between a dominant nostril for airflow. This process is called the nasal cycle and it plays an important role in the health of our nose.

The body actually switches the dominant nostril as frequently as every two hours while we’re awake. This switch is less frequent when we’re sleeping as our breathing rate slows and the volume of air entering and leaving the body lowers.

There are two key aspects to the nasal cycle: congestion and decongestion.

During the congestion phase, one nostril will experience reduced airflow, while the opposite nostril will be open, or decongested – allowing for more air to pass through it. The decongested phase actually fatigues the open nostril, as air dries it out and brings pathogens into contact with it. This is why it’s important for the dominant nostril to swap.

This alternating cycle is automatic, regulated subconsciously by the hypothalamus in the brain. However, some people have no nasal cycle (such as those who have a hypothalamic disorder). There’s also evidence that the left nostril may be more dominant – particularly in right handed people.

Studies looking at nasal breathing even suggest that when the right nostril is dominant, the body is in a more alert or stressed state. But when the left nostril takes over, the body is in a more relaxed state.

The nasal cycle is important for a number of reasons.

First, it protects the lining of the nose and respiratory system. At least 12,000 litres of air pass through it each day, making it a key front-line defence from pathogens. Having the dominant nostril alternate reduces the risk of damage and also makes it easier for the nasal passage to protect against pathogens.

The nose also has to rest and repair. Air exposure dries it out – so without time to recuperate, this could make it easier for pathogens and inflammation to cause damage.

Part of the congestion process also sees increased blood flow to the nose’s vessels. This ensures the nostrils are moistened properly for both the repair and recovery processes, and so that air is warmed and moistened as it passes through the nostril.

Nasal cycle function

A number of things can affect the nasal cycle’s normal function. Respiratory conditions such as colds and flu result in an increase in mucous production. This restricts how easily the nasal passages are able to alternate.

Allergens such as pollen or dust mites can cause severe inflammation of the nasal tissues – again impeding proper function of the nasal cycle.

Certain medications, such as those for high blood pressure, can cause irritation of the nasal lining, too. This is because these drugs effect the blood vessels throughout the body – including those in the nose.

Overuse of nasal decongestants (for more than five days at a time) can cause rhinitis medicamentosa – a form of congestion that occurs when you overuse these drugs. The sudden swelling of the nostril tissues affects the nasal cycle.

For others, structural issues interfere with their nasal cycle. Nasal polyps, which are found in up to 4% of people, are an outgrowth of the nasal lining that usually occurs in both nostrils. These limit how easily air can pass through the nostrils, making the nasal cycle ineffective and leaving both nostrils constantly feeling blocked.

A deviated nasal septum – where the cartilage and bone plate between the nostrils is off-centre – can also make the nostrils feel constantly congested or blocked. This often requires surgery to improve breathing and sleep quality.

Even factors as simple as lying in bed or slouching over can affect the nasal cycle. When you lay down, blood pools in the tissues of the nose. Gravity also causes the contents of the sinuses to move into the nostril closest to the pillow. This can block one of the nostrils, making it harder to breathe and preventing the nasal cycle from working as normal.

If you’re struggling with blocked nostrils, infections such as colds and the flu are usually the most common culprit. It can take up to two weeks to clear the congestion. Sinusitis, where the sinuses become infected, can last for four weeks.

Pollen allergies can also be a common culprit of a abnormal nasal cycle. This symptom can last for weeks depending on the specific allergen you’re allergic to. Regularly taking antihistamines during hay fever season may help to reduce symptoms and clear any congestion.

But if you find one nostril is persistently blocked for more than two weeks, it’s usually a good idea to get it checked out – particularly if there’s mucus coming from your nose, or a discharge that doesn’t look normal for you.

Adam Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. This is why you only breathe out of one nostril at a time – https://theconversation.com/this-is-why-you-only-breathe-out-of-one-nostril-at-a-time-276407

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gabriele Albertini, Assistant Professor in Structural Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Nottingham

The unofficial soundtrack of every basketball, squash or hard-court tennis match is the constant high-pitched squeak or shreak of the players’ shoes. But can this squeak be designed out of them while retaining the grip?

That’s the question an international team of engineers and applied physicists, including me, have been investigating. It sounds like a small design tweak. In fact, it cuts to a deep physics problem: how a soft body slides against a rigid one.

Perhaps surprisingly, the mechanism that produces sound when a soft solid slides against a stiffer one has long been the subject of scientific debate. Most theories are linked to the concept of “stick-slip”: when, instead of sliding smoothly, the sliding object rapidly alternates between sticking and slipping.

While it sticks, the soft body (such as a rubber sole) deforms and stores elastic energy. Then it suddenly slips, turning much of that energy into heat through friction – while also releasing rapid vibrations that radiate out as sound.

But this is not exactly what we observed in our experiments.

After Leonardo da Vinci

Our recently published study took inspiration from the simple-but-effective setup used by Leonardo da Vinci in his studies of friction from the late 15th century.

Leonardo used a wooden block resting on a flat surface. The block was subjected to two forces: a normal force (its own weight) and a tangential force which was applied using an additional weight attached to a cable.

By stacking and combining multiple blocks, Leonardo discovered the two fundamental laws of friction: that friction is proportional with how hard the surfaces are pressed together, and largely independent of the size of the contact area.

But Leonardo never published these findings, which were finally rediscovered and made public in the 19th century in notebooks scattered throughout Europe. In the meantime, the laws of friction had only been formally enunciated by French physicist Guillaume Amontons in 1699 – two centuries after Leonardo’s studies.

Furthermore, these laws are empirical rather than fundamental, and in extreme cases they break down. This led us to the question of what makes a shoe squeak.

Read more:
Leonardo da Vinci’s early work on friction founded the modern science of tribology

A surprising result

One of the biggest difficulties in friction studies is that the interface being tested (where a shoe sole meets a hardwood floor, for example) is hard to get at, and comes under a lot of pressure while slipping at high speed. Placing sensors at the interface is almost impossible – and even if it were, this would probably alter the frictional response.

Our solution was to use an optical trick: we replaced the hardwood floor with a transparent acrylic plate and mounted an array of LED lights along its sides. When each test object – including multiple rubber blocks – made contact with the plate, light would leak into the contact region, brightening up this area alone. That allowed us to visualise exactly which parts of the soft-rigid interface were in contact.

We used a high-speed camera, capable of capturing up to 1 million frames per second, to film how the contact patches evolved while the “sole” was skidding, and recorded the sounds being emitted with a microphone.

We found that at the point of contact, tiny wrinkles in the surface of the rubber block – known as “opening slip pulses” – were created, which then raced along the interface at nearly 100 metres per second. While most of the block remained stuck in place, these rapidly moving wrinkles created the sound in each friction test.

Surprisingly, even tiny geometrical features at the frictional interface had profound effects on the sound generated. When it was perfectly flat and smooth, the pulses were messy and generated a scratch-like noise of many different frequencies – closer to the sound of peeling adhesive tape than a clean squeak.

But when ridges were present, like those on the soles of sport shoes, the pulses were confined by the width of these ridges, making them very regular (not messy any more). This turned the sound into a more musical tone akin to the squeaks heard on a basketball court.

We were also able to determine what decides the precise pitch of a shoe squeak. In each test, it was largely unaffected by either the speed of sliding or magnitude of the force applied (which relates to the weight of a player).

Rather, the clearest link was with the height of the rubber block – or the thickness of a shoe’s sole. Using this knowledge, we created a series of blocks of different heights in order to play a familiar melody, as shown in this video.

Our research lays the groundwork for controlling or suppressing squeaking in many mechanical systems involving soft-on-rigid friction. These range from brakes and tyres to hip and knee replacements, where polymer liners slide against polished metal or ceramic heads.

And yes, it could even lead to the development of squeakless sneakers. Designing intricate patterns that keep plenty of rubber in contact (so the grip stays high) but break the sliding into lots of tiny, out-of-sync microevents could kill the clean note of the squeak, and leave only a soft hush.

Table-top earthquakes

Beyond the realm of sports, this work also relates to much larger geophysical questions. Similar experimental approaches to ours have served as table-top models for studying earthquakes, during which ruptures and slip pulses spread along tectonic faults at extremely high speed.

If we can reproduce earthquake-like slip pulses in the lab, the next challenge is scaling – working out how those centimetre-scale measurements translate to what happens inside real faults in the Earth.

Achieving this could help interpret seismic signals more confidently: using waves recorded far from a fault to infer what has actually happened at the source. Better physics-based models could improve seismic hazard estimates and lead to more reliable hazard maps.

Meanwhile, we’ll keep thinking about squeakless sneakers too.

Gabriele Albertini received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the University of Nottingham.

– ref. Why do sports shoes squeak? Here’s what our research reveals – https://theconversation.com/why-do-sports-shoes-squeak-heres-what-our-research-reveals-277518

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paolo Heywood, Associate Professor, Social Anthropology, Durham University

Everyone’s been in a debate when someone says: “You’re taking that out of context.” But what does it actually mean to understand something “in context”?

Appeals to context feel irrefutable. Of course we need context. But “context” is one of those ideas that seems obvious until you actually try to define it. What counts as context? Where does context end and the thing itself begin? And whose context matters?

Take a typical example: a quote from a politician surfaces that seems damning. Condemnation ensues. But a defence is mounted: the quote has been taken out of context – the politician was being sarcastic, as you’ll see when you look at what else they said at the same time.

But the assault continues when it’s pointed out that the quote fits with other remarks the politician has made. Meanwhile, still further defences are mounted on the basis of the wider political debates around the subject of the quote. Everyone’s invoking context, but nobody’s agreeing.

“Context” isn’t one thing, though the way we use the word often suggests it is. It’s dozens of different things we’ve given different names to over centuries. Social context. Historical context. Cultural context. Political context. Economic context. Linguistic context. Biographical context. Institutional context. Each of these emerged as distinct ways of thinking about how to situate meaning, and each implies a different kind of explanation.

We haven’t always been as concerned about context as we are now – and we haven’t always understood it in the same way. The historian Peter Burke dates “context” in roughly its current (and quite capacious) senses to the counter-enlightenment romanticism of the 19th century.

This same counter-enlightenment romanticism is partly the context in which my own discipline of anthropology emerged – and people started insisting we understand human practices “in their total social context”. They meant something specific: that you can’t understand a ritual or belief by isolating it, and you have to see how it fits into an entire way of life.

When historians talk about “historical context”, they often mean the sequence of events and conditions that preceded something – the causal chain. When literary critics invoke “textual context”, they often mean the surrounding words that shape meaning. These are all genuinely different intellectual operations, and they often pull in opposite directions.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein spent much of his life thinking about this problem. In his early work, he thought meaning depended on logical context – how a statement fits into a formal structure.

Later, he abandoned this for something messier: meaning depends on what he called “form of life” – the shared practices and assumptions that make our words intelligible to one other. There’s no algorithm for context, there’s just the hard work of making explicit what we normally take for granted. This helps to explain why political arguments can sometimes be so frustrating. We think we’re disagreeing about facts when we’re actually disagreeing about which kind of context is relevant.

Take recent debates about crime statistics. In 2024, the then Conservative government of the UK argued that crime had fallen by 56% since 2010, yet it also claimed that knife crime had risen dramatically in London since the arrival of Labour mayor Sadiq Khan.

More recently, meanwhile, Reform’s Nigel Farage argues that crime has skyrocketed since the 1990s in ways that records fail to make clear because people aren’t reporting crimes. Still others point to the economic context of austerity and cuts to policing that have hit deprived areas the hardest.

Who’s right? They all might be, in a sense. But they’re playing different games with context. The Conservative government used temporal context (crime down since 2010) and regional context (but up in London). Farage invokes methodological context (the problem of unreported crime skewing the data). Critics of austerity point to economic and structural context (resource distribution and its effects). Each context tells you to look at different things, weigh different factors, draw different conclusions.

There’s no neutral context, no view from nowhere. Every context is itself a choice: a decision about what matters, what explains what, which background is relevant. When we invoke context, we’re not just adding information, we’re making a claim about what kind of thing the world is. These aren’t just different amounts of context, they’re different ideas about what makes things meaningful.

What do we do with this?

Choosing a context is itself an argumentative move. When you invoke historical context, you’re claiming – probably – that temporal sequence and precedent matter most. When you invoke social context, you’re claiming that group membership or structural position matter most. These are substantial commitments, not neutral framings.

It’s also helpful to recognise that contexts can conflict. The immediate linguistic context (x was being ironic) might point one way, while the historical context (but x voted for similar measures) points to another. Both can be “true” while supporting opposite conclusions.

None of this means context doesn’t matter. It means it’s helpful to be honest about what we’re doing when we invoke it. We’re not just adding background information. We’re making claims about what kind of background matters, which in turn depend on deeper assumptions about how the world works.

It’s helpful to be explicit about which context we’re operating in, and why we think it’s the relevant one. That certainly won’t resolve all arguments. But it might help us see that we’re not always arguing about the same thing.

Understanding context isn’t an invitation to add more and more information until everyone agrees. It’s an acknowledgement that meaning is situated, and that different situations generate different meanings. The hard part is figuring out which situation we’re actually in.

This article contains references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and this may include links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Paolo Heywood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How to spot the use and abuse of the word ‘context’ – https://theconversation.com/how-to-spot-the-use-and-abuse-of-the-word-context-275875

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Peter Howley, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science, University of Leeds

The outlook for job seekers in the UK appears to be taking a turn for the worse. Weak economic growth and continued uncertainty for employers have led to forecasts that unemployment will hit 5.3% this year.

In politics, the debate typically follows a familiar pattern: creating jobs, tackling unemployment and making sure welfare benefits are fair. But this economic framing captures only part of what is at stake. Work is not simply a source of income. It is about much more than a paycheck.

When people lose work or cannot find a job, the damage is often psychological as much as financial. With official estimates suggesting that UK unemployment will climb higher this year than previously forecast, that leaves problems for the government beyond just the numbers.

Economists estimate that in terms of life satisfaction the non-financial costs of unemployment are several times larger than the loss of income itself. Unemployment can also leave long-term scarring effects – fears about becoming unemployed again, for example – even after people have found a new job.

One reason is that employment fulfils important psychological needs. Just as vitamins are essential for human bodies, certain aspects of work – autonomy, variety, recognition – are essential for the mind.

When work disappears, people lose not only financial security but often routine and social connection as well. Days can become less structured, social networks might shrink and confidence can erode. In most societies, work is also closely tied to self-worth, meaning unemployment can bring feelings of guilt, shame or personal failure even when job loss is beyond a person’s control.

A good illustration of how powerful these social meanings can be comes from a study of people’s happiness as they transitioned into retirement. People who move directly from employment into life as a pensioner typically experienced little change in their overall satisfaction.

In contrast, those who had been unemployed before retiring reported a marked improvement in wellbeing once they reached retirement age. The difference was not due to changes in financial circumstances. Rather, retirement removed the stigma attached to not working. During working life, being unemployed carries a heavy social stigma. But no one looks down on a pensioner for not working.

Psychological pain

To illustrate further these non-financial costs of not working, research my colleagues and I conducted also looked at how unhappy people feel when they are out of work depending on the overall unemployment rate in their neighbourhood. If unemployment were purely an economic issue, then living in an area with high joblessness should make things worse. It means fewer jobs and tougher competition for those roles, after all.

But what actually happens is the opposite: although the psychological pain of being unemployed is always substantial, this pain reduces as more people around you lose their jobs. Now, it is clearly not the case that people are just cruel and taking pleasure in others’ misfortune. But when job loss becomes more common, the stigma eases and people no longer feel as alone or to blame for their situation.

Read more:
Why unemployment can feel worse when there is less of it around

The current challenge is not limited to outright job loss. Globalisation and technological change have expanded economic opportunities overall, with things like new industries, cheaper goods and services, and greater access to global markets. But they have also contributed to the growth of insecure and lower-quality work. For many people, stable and meaningful employment has become harder to find.

These changes are unevenly distributed: communities that have historically been reliant on manufacturing have suffered lasting declines. These include higher unemployment, lower wages and wider social problems following exposure to competition from cheaper manufacturing bases. In this sense, economic change has created a new geography of disadvantage.

The consequences extend beyond individual happiness. Rising job insecurity and dissatisfaction with work can reshape how people view government institutions and politics more broadly. They are associated with falling trust and growing frustration: conditions that have been linked to stronger support for populist and anti-establishment movements across advanced economies.

When large groups feel economically marginalised or socially undervalued, political discontent often follows. Labour market policy, therefore, is not only about employment rates or economic growth. The right decisions can help to sustain social cohesion and democratic stability during periods of economic change.

The rapid advance of AI in the workplace brings these questions into sharper focus. It promises extraordinary gains in productivity, but also raises an uncomfortable question for the future. What happens when large numbers of people are no longer needed for the work that once defined economic life?

The challenge posed by AI is not simply how to distribute income, but how to sustain human flourishing in a world where work plays a smaller role. Financial compensation alone may prevent poverty, but it cannot guarantee satisfaction with life. And if citizens do not feel that their lives have value or direction, the political consequences may prove as significant as the economic ones. The future of work is not just an economic question, but a social one.

Peter Howley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why unemployment – and bad jobs – carry hidden social and political costs – https://theconversation.com/why-unemployment-and-bad-jobs-carry-hidden-social-and-political-costs-277559

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marrisa Joseph, Associate Professor of Organisation Studies & Business History, University of Reading

Netflix’s plan to buy the Hollywood studio Warner Bros Discovery is over. The streaming giant was eventually outbid by rival company Paramount Skydance, which is willing to pay around US$111 billion (£82.2 billion) for the company.

It’s not a done deal yet. There will be regulatory hoops that Paramount needs to get through.

But after a tense few months of negotiations, Warner Bros, which put itself up for sale last year, said Paramount’s latest bid was “superior” to the one from Netflix, which then refused to raise its offer.

And if things go according to Paramount’s plan, the company will soon become the new owners of a vast library of content. It will own the likes of Casablanca, Friends, Superman, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. Plus it will have the Sopranos, Sex and the City and Succession.

Media companies like Paramount and Netflix appear to see high quality back catalogues as valuable strategic assets. The theory is that control over legacy content can provide financial stability and a durable competitive advantage.

And it’s a strategy with a long history. Back in the 18th century for example, Longman, the UK’s oldest commercial publishing house, built up its business by acquiring the catalogues of other firms.

Founded by Thomas Longman in 1724, the company steadily and deliberately expanded its portfolio of titles. One of the most famous and lucrative of these was Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

In addition to acquiring catalogues from publishers (who were often retiring or leaving the trade) Longman was also a keen trader of shares in consortiums known as “congers”. This was where publishers collaborated to finance new literary works as a way of spreading the risk of potentially costly publishing ventures. In 1755, for example, Longman joined a consortium with five other publishers to produce and publish Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language.

By the time Longman reached its centenary in 1824, the firm was regarded as one of the most distinguished publishing houses of the age. Its fortunes were built on the substantial capital generated through the acquisition of lucrative copyrights, a strategy that successive generations continued.

It was the third generation of Longman publishers for example, who, in 1863, acquired the business of John William Parker & Son, publishers of Gray’s Anatomy. First issued in 1858, the work had already become pivotal to medical education, making it a highly valuable addition to Longman’s catalogue. It has never been out of print, and still sells well to medical students and doctors around the world today.

Longman continued to grow, and was considered one of the major players in British publishing in the 19th century. A steady commitment to purchasing reference and instructional works helped cement the firm’s reputation as a leading educational publisher, a position strengthened by its overseas trade and broad catalogue of school textbooks.

Content is always king

This would become their enduring legacy well into the 20th century, as Longman’s reference works came to define standards in English language educational publishing.

As successive generations of Longman had pursued this strategy of acquiring established firms with profitable lists, new media companies entered the market seeking to expand their portfolios. Longman’s reputation and extensive back catalogue eventually made the firm an attractive target for a take over.

In 1968 Longman was acquired by Pearson, bringing an end to a publishing dynasty that had lasted for centuries. And although no longer family-owned, the Longman imprint has endured as a strong brand in educational publishing.

Similarly, by absorbing Warner Bros. Discovery’s extensive archive, Paramount will gain control over a vast catalogue of cultural content, influencing which stories persist and how future entertainment landscapes may be shaped.

The deal, if it happens, demonstrates how legacy assets remain powerful tools for shaping markets and culture. It will also show that for media companies in the 21st century, as with publishing companies 300 years ago, ownership of a profitable back catalogue continues to be a cornerstone of growth and innovation.

Marrisa Joseph works for the University of Reading.

– ref. Netflix and Paramount bidding for a potentially lucrative back catalogue mirrors 18th-century publishing deals – https://theconversation.com/netflix-and-paramount-bidding-for-a-potentially-lucrative-back-catalogue-mirrors-18th-century-publishing-deals-275955

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tara Lai Quinlan, Associate Professor in Law and Criminal Justice, University of Birmingham

Police in England and Wales have lost public trust over the last decade, with confidence in policing declining across several measures since 2015. Five years on from the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving London Met police officer, Met commissioner Mark Rowley says he understands why women still do not trust the UK’s largest force.

Everard’s murder and the lack of police investigation into violence against women and girls more generally is just one example of why trust has dipped. Other reasons include use of stop-and-search that disproportionately affects black people, and independent reviews finding that police organisational culture in the Met and other forces is institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic.

The government recently released its plans for the most significant overhaul of policing in decades. The proposals include changes to the sizes of forces, a new system of police licensing, and improving oversight and accountability for police.

This is an opportunity for policing to move away from the “warrior culture” that drives a wedge between police and local communities. As I have explored in my research, warrior-like policing culture – characterised by aggression, violence, sexism, racism and homophobia – is present in forces around the world, including in the UK.

The UK has made strides to increase transparency and accountability nationally, with publicly accessible barred police officers lists and using body-worn cameras.

The government’s proposal to reduce the number of forces in England and Wales from 43 to around 12 could be a chance to purge the most harmful aspects of this culture. Larger police forces are typically more diverse, and have more robust complaints and oversight systems. For example, New York and other US cities have civilian complaint review boards, which allow members of the public to review police misconduct complaints and be involved in improving policing.

Read more:
Met police: Casey review shows how ‘warrior culture’ drives policing in the UK

It could also be a chance to replace this warrior-like culture with “guardianship policing”, a policing model that prioritises police legitimacy through community respect, partnership and working with the public to combat crime and violence. This could include creative new solutions to local crime problems – like adopting public health solutions to issues like knife crime, which are health, not punishment, focused.

Improving accountability

Under the proposals, all police officers across England and Wales will be required to hold and regularly renew their Licence to Practice. While the College of Policing will set the standards, this is an opportunity to develop more robust, fair and accountable training and licensing requirements.

Too often, police standards and training are designed and delivered by current and former officers without input from the communities they serve. Members of the public could offer perspectives on their own experiences of crime, and also of poor policing, to better inform police of the consequences of their work.

The government also wants to give the police inspectorate new legal powers to better support and incentivise problematic forces to improve. This means the inspectorate could take action where they find deeply embedded misogyny, racism, homophobia or other worrying misconduct. However, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), the police misconduct complaints watchdog, also needs increased enforcement powers so they can directly hold problematic people and forces to account, which they cannot currently do.

Read more:
Police are failing to deliver a minimum standard of service, according to the UK public

But even under the proposals, the police inspectorate and IOPC will still handle too few cases. Currently, police misconduct is mostly handled internally within forces, and often results in little action. The inspectorate and the misconduct watchdog should therefore also be empowered to sue problematic forces for systemic problems, which they still will not be able to do under the proposals.

Another possibility would be to give courts the power to create and enforce consent decrees. Common in the US, these court-ordered settlement agreements mandate changes to troubled police forces, which are overseen by a court or independent monitoring team. These are the types of reforms that would give systemic misconduct investigations real teeth.

Politicising the police

The reforms present some real opportunities to change policing, but are also fraught with potential for misuse.

For example, giving central government more control over policing, including restoring the home secretary’s ability to fire chief constables. This could be helpful in instances of large numbers of police misconduct complaints or low police legitimacy levels in certain forces. But if a home secretary can fire police chiefs on a whim – because they don’t their like politics, because they work too closely with local communities, or because their initiatives are not punitive enough – that is problematic.

Policing policy should be driven by evidence, not by politics. The risks and implications of overly-politicised policing and security decisions are worrying, because they can mean peoples’ needs are not addressed.

To this end, it is promising that the government is replacing elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs). PCCs were controversially introduced in 2012, with proponents arguing they provided greater police accountability and innovation. Yet critics assert they added additional police bureaucracy, tied the hands of police chiefs in addressing local crime, and are more subject to political pressures.

The proposal to replace PCCs with Policing and Crime Boards under mayoral or local council control could allow for better coordinated, more innovative solutions to local crime and security problems. Or, it may effectively just be keeping PCCs, but under another name.

Tara Lai Quinlan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Can police reforms improve trust in UK forces? – https://theconversation.com/can-police-reforms-improve-trust-in-uk-forces-274673