Interview with Stacey Rothwell

Stacey Rothwell, a former student on the MSt Applied Criminology and Police Management course, has won the Innovation Award at the 2024 Government Science and Engineering (GSE) Awards. She received this award for her research on implementing rapid video response with Kent Police.

Rapid video response (RVR) involves crime victims speaking to police officers via video call, rather than officers appearing at a crime scene in person. It is used for non-emergency cases of domestic abuse, where the perpetrator is not present with the victim. Rothwell, currently the Network Director for Innovation in the Eastern Region, led a study that demonstrated how RVR could allow police to process domestic abuse cases faster. Based on this, she has helped implement RVR as part of Kent Police’s ongoing strategy.

Rothwell joined Kent Police in 1998 as a detective. In the beginning, she specialised as a financial investigator, working on crimes such as money laundering. She has since had a varied career in this police service, including as a project manager and as part of the Innovation Task Force.

It was during her work with this task force that Rothwell first learned about the concept of evidence-based policing. This approach emphasises using the best available evidence to inform policing methods. When Rothwell joined the Innovation Task Force, evidence-based policing was starting to become more widespread.

It was also through the task force colleagues that Rothwell learned about the MSt in Applied Criminology and Police Management at Cambridge. In 2019, Kent Police used their Apprenticeship Levy to fund 4 police personnel to attend the course. Rothwell applied for the course and managed to secure a place.

 She was inspired to research RVR for domestic abuse after a lecture by Professor Lawrence Sherman, about testing different responses to burglary.

“I just thought, when you go to the doctor’s and they make you sit and wait, you know you’re probably about half an hour behind your appointment,” says Rothwell. “We all travel to the doctor, but when you need the police, they come to our houses. It was just a bit odd to me.”

Reflecting on her experience as a police officer, she believed that being present at a crime scene was not what instilled victims’ trust in her.

“What made a difference for them was obtaining a crime report number for the victim, safeguarding them and apprehending offenders quickly,” she explains. “It’s the action that comes from that first response that matters.”

Rothwell chose to focus on domestic abuse for RVR, since reports of it within the county of Kent have risen over the last decade. At the same time, police numbers have declined, making it increasingly difficult for officers to be present at every domestic abuse case. This reliance on officers’ physical presence was justified on the assumption that offenders typically remained at the site of domestic abuse. However, more recent studies suggest that abusers had usually left by the time police arrived.

Moreover, many domestic abuse victims struggle to leave their houses due to fear of punishment. Contacting them remotely via video was seen as a potential method of reaching more people. The rise in remote working since the COVID-19 pandemic has also made more people accustomed to video calls, including emergency services.

Rothwell began her research with two main questions: can RVR improve police efficiency in tackling domestic abuse? And can it improve caller satisfaction?

To test the effectiveness of RVR against in-person visits from the police, Rothwell’s study provided a group of victims with in-person responses. She also split victims into four demographic groups: male and female victims, with intimate and non-intimate abuse perpetrators. Out of these four groups, female victims with intimate partners as perpetrators were by far the largest. This demographic accounted for 69% of the domestic abuse victims surveyed.

The results of Rothwell’s study were extremely encouraging. Under RVR, the average delay in police response fell from over 32 hours to 3 minutes. The number of arrests increased by 50%. Most importantly, the satisfaction rate for female victims of intimate domestic abuse increased from 78% to 89%.

As Rothwell explains, RVR improves the efficiency of police work in two important ways. During the call stage, it ensures all relevant information about the crime is given during the call, including the urgency and any potential evidence. This then means that, at the deployment stage, officers can be deployed while the call is taking place, and arrests usually happen faster.

“Before RVR, if you phoned the police, you’d get put through a call taker, who would take your details and put them on a log,” Rothwell explains. “That log would be sent to a dispatcher, and they’d see if there are any available patrols. Our randomised control trials showed that in Kent that case would await on average 32 hours and 49 minutes, alongside other cases.”

“Now, with RVR, you phone up and say I need help. If your call is deemed suitable for the RVR service, then the call taker takes the details and passes you through to the RVR team. You'll speak to an officer within 3 minutes. That officer will do your crime report whilst you're on the phone and give you the crime report number. They may well also do the safeguard referral. They'll definitely do the risk assessment whilst you're on the phone, so within the three minutes of the referral, the first response will be done.”

“I hear stories now, where Kent Police have managed to arrest someone within two hours and get them remanded before a court," Rothwell adds. “This has sped up our ability to respond to calls for help for domestic abuse.”

Rapid video response is now being rolled out across the UK for domestic abuse victims. Rothwell founded the Eastern Region Innovation Network (ERIN) and has expanded RVR to 6 regional police forces in the East of England.

Creating a dedicated RVR support system also means reorganising police response units. First responders for in-person policing are responsible for identifying evidence of a crime and catching the criminal in question. Under RVR, the former part is done via video, and first responders are only responsible for the latter part. This new system requires a new, streamlined training programme.

However, Rothwell is optimistic about the speed at which police services have adopted this new programme. Having expected them to take a few years, she was surprised to see most police services adjust to RVR within a few weeks.

Rothwell feels indebted to her MSt course in Criminology and Police Management. She believes that it expanded her understanding of evidence-based policing and gave her the confidence to implement it.

“My role in particular lent itself to doing the MSt,” she says, “because it involved applied criminology and senior police management. I need both of those skills to be able to do my job, so it’s really relevant, and I really soaked up the course.”

“Learning to track, target, and test was key to understanding how data and applied science could help police understand the benefits of any given project.”

Dr Peter Neyroud, Associate Professor in Evidence-Based Policing and Director of the Police Executive Programme at the Institute of Criminology, congratulated Rothwell.

“The University of Cambridge just received an ‘outstanding’ grade from OFSTED for our apprenticeship provision,” he said. “Stacey’s achievement is an outstanding example of what that means in operational impact. We are very proud of her award, which is very well deserved.”

The Institute of Criminology MSt in Criminology and Police Management is currently open for application for 2025 entry. This two-year, part-time course offers a globally relevant framework for preserving and enhancing democratic policing, by developing senior leaders in policing, law enforcement and associated organisations.