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Institute of Criminology

 

Biography

Simon left the Metropolitan Police (MPS) in Feb 2022 after having completed just over 30 years service. His last three posts were as the BCU Commander (Detective Chief Superintendent) for North West London, Temporary Commander Crime (Assistant Chief Constable) for the MPS and his last post before finishing was as the OCU Commander (Detective Chief Superintendent) for Met Intelligence. He is now finishing of his PhD whilst also now working for the Cambridge Center for Evidence-Based Policing.

Simon’s first degree was in Chemistry at Essex University before joining the Metropolitan Police in 1992. He returned to education in 2009 undertaking an MBA (with distinction) at Warwick Business School. His dissertation was on a trial of e-engagement tactics to improve confidence in policing.  Simon came to The Institute of Criminology in Cambridge in 2016 as a student on the Masters in Applied Criminology and Police management program. His thesis was on the solvability factors for anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crime in London. Until his research there had been no quantitative faith hate crime solvability work in the UK due to sample size issues. He graduated with a course and thesis distinction. Simon then came back to the Institute of Criminology in 2018 to start his PhD. 

Research

Simon’s research interest has followed on from the learning from his MSt. around solvability. The MSt addressed a very narrow area of faith hate crime solvability with some environmental factors considered. The PhD is examining which crime circumstances, discretionary solvability factors and environmental factors are the best predictors of solvability for all volume crime types.

As a result of the current literature around volume crime solvability producing contradictory findings and highly context specific findings by crime type, geography and jurisdiction a patchwork quilt of evidence with many holes exists. Simon’s research, using the very large Metropolitan Police dataset, seeks to test the external validity of findings from different geographies and jurisdictions. It will also do this simultaneously across all volume crime types. Simon is also introducing a far wider range of environmental factors and community factors to build a richer and more consistent picture of crime solvability factors.

Publications

Key publications: 

Simon presented the findings of his MSt. at annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology in Atlanta 2018, and at the Cambridge 11th International Conference of Evidence based Policing. More detailed results from his research were published as a chapter in ‘Crime Solvability Factors Police Resources and Crime Detection’ (forthcoming 1/10/19)

Teaching and Supervisions

Teaching: 

Simon has undertaken some ad hoc lecturing at London South Bank University and Middlesex University. 

Contact Details

smr67@cam.ac.uk

Affiliations

Classifications: