In 2021, ASP, along with Professor Betsy Stanko and Professor Katrin Hohl, pioneered Project Bluestone to examine its response to rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) in order to improve attrition figures and victim care, and to ensure a suspect focus approach is taken in the investigation.
This police-academic collaboration was considered both ground-breaking and game-changing and led to the national project Operation Soteria, whose research culminated in the development of the National Operation Model (NOM) for RASSO. This has been implemented nationally across all 43 forces.
The police response to DA is beset with a range of systemic issues similar to those that prompted Project Bluestone and Operation Soteria. These include low charge and conviction rates, poor victim experience, high victim withdrawal and attrition rates, low levels of trust and confidence in the police's ability to keep victims of DA safe, low status within policing, empathy fatigue, and problematic attitudes towards DA victims amongst officers.
There are also shared organisational issues: a deficit in specialist knowledge and competence, under-resourcing and inexperience, poor data quality and data analytics to inform operational and strategic decision-making, ineffective and patchy learning and development approaches, and the poor use of digital forensic evidence in case building.
This project seeks to significantly transform the response to DA within ASP by applying the Soteria approach. Key features that led to the success of Project Bluestone and Operation Soteria are being be applied within this project, including police-academic collaboration and co-production, a commitment to developing solutions (not recommendations), a focus on practical products for officers at both operational and strategic levels, close collaboration with the CPS and Invasives, and close consultation with the victim sector. The ‘six pillars’ framework (below) will guide the project's development and testing of solutions, ensuring a holistic and evidence-based approach to improving the response to DA.
Above: The six pillars of Operation Soteria Bluestone: Suspect focused investigations, stopping repeat suspects, procedural justice approach to victim engagement, learning, development and officer well-being, data and performance, and digital forensics.
Despite clear parallels between RASSO and DA, there are additional considerations and complexities when assessing how the NOM and the products in place to aid the application of the NOM developed for RASSO applies to the police response to all DA cases, suspects, and victims (including DA cases not involving RASSO).
This project will surface and explore these nuances and, building on the deep knowledge developed in the previous research, combined with academic and operational experience of those involved will develop appropriate approaches to drive improvement in DA investigations.
