University event helps shift focus towards prevention of violence against women and girls

Academics and policing professionals from across the UK and US gathered at the University of Northampton (UON) last month for a networking event which aimed to make the nighttime economy safer for women and girls.

On Wednesday 21 May, the Networking Event on the Nighttime Economy, Violence Against Women and Girls and Project Vigilant brought together police officers from three UK forces, human trafficking experts from Oklahoma, academics and policy makers from across the UK, former victims with lived experience of human trafficking, policing industry partners and the Northampton Guardians.

In his opening remarks, Simon Feist, UON’s interim Head of Criminal Justice Studies said he and the UON Criminal Justice Studies Team had worked as a ‘critical friend’ to Project Vigilant in which they discussed new legislation, explored research opportunities, and shared best practice.

He said: “Finally, we’re all together now exchanging ideas, looking at bringing those involved with Project Vigilant, and preventing violence against women and girls, together under one roof, in one space, in order to exchange ideas, experiences, and optimise the expertise in this room, while sharing it with a wider audience.

“The objective is to encourage the development of networks with the shared goal of addressing sexual violence in the nighttime economy.

“We also hope it will enable national and international law enforcement agencies, policymakers, government, and academics to engage in constructive discussions in a collegiate and adhesive manner to achieve that shared goal.”

DI Tina Wallace KPM, from Thames Valley Police was the previous Tactical Lead for Project Vigilant and spoke about the history of the project and why it was important.

She said public confidence around policing sexual offences was low and that Project Vigilant is attempting to improve that by shifting the focus towards prevention.

She said by sharing intelligence on low level offending in the same way that policing does for terrorism and drug smuggling, they would be able to catch offenders at an early stage before their offending becomes more serious.

She said: “When it comes to violence against women and girls and serious sexual offences, we tend to wait until a victim has come to us and then we respond. But how do we understand and prevent it from happening? And that’s the cultural shift. We’ve still got to be able to deal with the offender and deal with the response, but we’ve got to be able to figure out how to prevent it.”

Later in the day UON’s Dr Jordan Nunan, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice Studies gave a presentation on the Independent Academic Advisory Group and Dr Kardi Somerfield, UON’s Deputy Head of Marketing & Entrepreneurship demonstrated a Virtual Reality package designed to help students learn how to stay safe in the nighttime economy.

DI Troy Smith from, Wiltshire Police also gave a presentation on Vigilant Communities, Kevin Metcalf, Director of the Human Trafficking Response Unit at the Office of the Oklahoma Attorney General gave a presentation on human trafficking, and Dr Emily Quinn, Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Cambridge spoke about The Policing Sixth Sense exploring the principle of ‘a copper’s nose.’