Assessing transmission and translation of learning about evidence-based policing by graduate trainee police officers

We examine transmission of Evidence-Based Policing (EBP) principles through taught classroom sessions, a skills-based Masterclass and enhanced infusion experienced by participants of the Police Now (PN) leadership development programme. We coded 75 presentations describing a live project delivered by 57 PN participants (probationer constables) at one of PN’s ‘100 Day Impact Events’. Benchmarking the content against extended EBP criteria revealed that graduates attempted to specify issues and engage in consultation, but made relatively limited use of concepts and theory, data analysis or statistical techniques. Rather than note this as a limitation of the PN programme, or ‘failures’ by the learners we argue that the findings open a wider discussion of what level of research sophistication can reasonably be expected of serving officers.