Cops, Criminal Couples, and the Dark Web

Do Police Officers need to be academic? If you struggled with Maths and English in school, can you still become a cop?

In this talk I would like to share with you my thoughts on how to make the uniformed services in general and policing in particular accessible to people who did not necessarily excel in school/college. My career in education is quite unique in the sense that I have both taught prisoners in prison for years, and now am involved in teaching police officers. As it is important that the police service is a true reflection of society, it is important that we have clear ideas on how to ensure that education is not a barrier to entry where it should not be.

About the speaker:
I bring over two decades of enthusiastic teaching and lecturing experience to the table. My passion for education spans various settings. I have done community outreach and have taught prisoners in prison. I have also taught in Further Education and Higher Education. Now I teach Police Education and Training. Beyond academia, I am also a talented visual artist, infusing creativity into my teaching practices. In my leisure time, I find comfort in the tranquillity of swimming and thrive on immersing myself in new experiences, constantly seeking opportunities for personal and professional growth.

A discussion focused on couples who have jointly offended. This talk will consider a number of high-profile cases where couples have jointly offended and will consider the power dynamics at play and question whether coercive behaviour was ever considered as a defence.

About the speaker:
Richard is currently the Subject Area Lead for Policing at the University of Portsmouth and leads on the Professional Policing Degree. Richard was a former senior police officer (Chief Superintendent) with both operational and strategic executive experience in a variety of roles that included head of public protection (adult and children). Richard has extensive experience as a police commander and SIO (Kidnap/Extortion). He has led on response policing force-wide change to meet challenging financial reductions set by the UK Government; the model was delivered under Richard’s leadership and met the financial target and remains the model of choice for local policing. Richard also has extensive experience of complex and reputationally sensitive investigations together with executive partnership experience in both the public and private sector. Richard has been the Chair for the Local Safeguarding Boards in Portsmouth and Interim Chair for Adults. He has international Policing experience, having worked on an EU twinning project in Turkey and has worked in India, Laos, Albania and the United States (stop and search/Police Education), together with managing international organised crime investigations. Richard has attended the US Police Chiefs leadership programme in New Jersey. Richard’s doctorate is on Safeguarding Children in Schools. His research interests are Stop and Search, Racial issues with the Criminal Justice System and Police Education.

This talk dives into the ethics and reality of our online actions, and gets hands-on by creating a dark website during the talk. We'll discuss what's right and wrong online, and see how it matches up with what really happens. This talk aims to make us think more about our online behaviour and encourages us to find a way to align our digital actions with our ethical values, even when faced with the complex realities and moral conundrums of the Internet. As cybersecurity and online safety is now such a big part of our lives the talk will touch on how we might better tackle the debates around the plethora of issues.

About the speaker:
Simon Marsden is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Cybercrime. He has a particular interest in cyber security and online safety education as well as a more hands-on interest in ethical hacking and penetration testing.