Police, Justice and Borders

Widening horizons and delivering transformation

Safety, fairness, security and justice lie at the heart of any well-functioning society. But with stretched resources and the challenge of the digital as well as the physical world, good intelligence, analytics and cross-agency coordination become all the more important. Organised crime is increasingly cross-border, bringing additional challenges such as money laundering, modern slavery and human trafficking.

At PwC we work closely with departments, agencies and services across home affairs. In the UK and globally, we help our clients develop strategies and policies, transform organisations, deploy new ways of working, and harness technology and innovation. We provide assurance and investigation support services in both criminal and civil matters. Our teams are committed to supporting change that contributes to the safety, justice and prosperity of our society.

Aligning strategy and funding

Align strategic direction with government to secure appropriate and sustainable funding.

Creating agile operating models

Future-proof the police with network-based and innovative operating models to prioritise resources.

Balancing capability

Prioritise and position resources to fight crime at the local, national and international levels.

Exploiting technology and data

Create both productivity gains and amplify the effectiveness of policing through innovative opportunities.

Sworn police officers are still the backbone of a police organisation, but given the range of threats and types of criminality, especially in digitally driven crime, there is an urgent need to design, recruit, train and empower a committed, agile workforce for 21st-century policing. Younger, tech-savvy millennials are part of that frontline effort. Police organisations must reflect the demographic and ethnic makeup of the society in which they serve.

In Western Australia, the talent pool includes officers pursuing MBAs (Masters in Business Administration) and qualifications in politics and criminology. “We are attempting to provide greater opportunities to study elsewhere nationally and internationally,” said Stephen Brown, Deputy Commissioner, Western Australia.

Strategic workforce planning will be needed due to the rapidly changing nature of policing and the challenge for human resources functions to respond. Police organisations will need to keep in mind that the traditional key performance indicators (KPIs) around numbers of arrests will need to be broadened out to include metrics on elements like quality of service and crime prevention.

Diversity is crucial. Embracing a shift in perspective and making sure the force reflects the same diversity as the community it serves can help strengthen police legitimacy. “Whether it’s gender difference, cultural background or historical difference, a more diverse workforce is able to get different views and better communicate with different communities on a more human level,” said Paul Martin, Chief of Police of the Durham Regional Police Service in Canada. Police in Canada are learning useful lessons through collaboration with different cultural groups, such as First Nations police services, allowing them to draw from different viewpoints relevant to their communities.

In one small suburb in Perth, Australia, 42 African nations are represented in the community, while 41% of people living in the community were born outside Australia — a proportion that is among the highest in the world. “Our community is incredibly (and increasingly) diverse, and our workforce needs to respond to this...clearly, more needs to be done to shift towards accurately reflecting the diversity of the community we serve,” said Stephen Brown, Deputy Commissioner, Western Australia.

Building the future workforce

Design, recruit, train and empower a committed and agile workforce to disrupt criminality.

If the police are to remain public – to echo the words of Sir Robert Peel – police organisations will need to collaborate with government, communities, businesses and partner agencies to shape and enforce legislation with transparency to maintain legitimacy as a service.

In the Netherlands, progress has been made in binding the police closer to society in key ways. It is not uncommon for some towns to operate local ‘citizen’s patrols’ to help tackle crime. This is the most high-profile example of a broader trend in policing and society: the increasing participation by private citizens, organisations and others in various activities that fall within the range of police work and criminal justice. Another example in the Netherlands is the use of security services by harbour authorities.

The Dutch national police and the prosecution service launched an initiative in 2017 that aimed to develop guiding principles for how they should respond to and participate in such quasi-policing activities carried out by citizens and private organisations, with the aim of achieving sustainable inclusion in the criminal justice system. These disruptive changes in society have often unknown impacts on policing and the prosecution of crime, so it is important for police organisations to be engaged constructively with them.

This initiative involved PwC in helping the Dutch authorities assess the legal and other frameworks needed and analyse the extent to which citizens and private organisations can and should carry out such activities – and when government should step in.

One work stream is the establishment of a series of ‘professional dialogues’ with representatives of the police, prosecution service, academia, legal organisations, citizens groups and private organisations. These dialogues explore a wide range of ethical and legal issues, including unjustified citizen interventions (vigilantism), overburdening of police with data and disproportionate suspicion of individuals from certain social and/or ethnic groups. Another is the development of mobile apps for citizens to participate in the search process for missing people, stolen cars or burglars.