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Police historian Brian Williams @BriW74: “Why I tweet”
I have learned and gained information faster than I can imagine being able to do anywhere else, I have challenged peoples’ perceptions on policing issues and had my own challenged. This is important. Twitter loses it power if it acts merely an echo chamber for your own views. I have got far more out of tweeting than I ever thought I would. I have made and continue to make excellent contacts, particularly in the police tweeter world, many of whom I would not have managed to reach if not for twitter. I have made friendships with people that simply would not have happened without Twitter. One of these friends described me as “An historian masquerading as a police officer” I like that description!
The 6th Commandment of Payment by Results: Profit shall not be thy God
One of the most controversial aspects of payment by results in the UK has been the way the funding model has been used to outsource public services and open the market up to private providers, typically the sort of global companies who deliver the Work Programme. Many people are opposed in principle to the idea of public services generating profit for multinationals. On the other side of the argument are those that see the introduction of business sense and commercial acumen as a key way of reducing cost and driving innovation. But is financial profit the only measure of success?
What will happen to the prison population under Transforming Rehabilitation?
One of the key changes under the Offender Rehabilitation Bill currently working its way through Parliament is that short term prisoners will receive mandatory supervision on release. Although this development is broadly welcomed, one of the consequences will be that some of these prisoners will not comply with supervision and therefore will be breached and returned to prison. The recently updated impact assessment of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill estimated that 13,000 short term prisoners will be returned to prison because they will breach the new mandatory period of supervision on release. I can see two other factors which will drive up the custody rate…
How to use Social Media to promote your event
How to use Social Media to promote your event. This Infographic shows all the key elements of ABC: Announce, Broadcast, Consolidate approach in one easy to follow form.
The 5th Commandment of Payment by Results: Thou shall not pay for deadweight
Payment by results is about driving improvement, so no self-respecting PBR scheme will pay for results that will happen anyway, known in the jargon is “deadweight”. The proportion of deadweight in a PbR funded initiative varies markedly across different spheres of operation. Despite all the adverse publicity about reoffending rates which has accompanied the debate about the Rehabilitation Revolution, 65.8% of those supervised in the community and 53.1% of those released from prison do NOT re-offend in the first year. However, when we look at the Work Programme…
Police, Twitter and major incidents
Any major incident provokes a firestorm of reaction on Twitter and other social media outlets. In the wake of events such as the terrorist killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich what should the police be doing online. Amongst the general noise and bot-generated confusion, there are opportunities to keep the public reliably informed and gather some key intelligence.
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