Virtual Volunteers: a solution looking for policing problems

Abstract

The police value the many contributions made by volunteers, from Special Constables (SC) undertaking uniformed patrol to Police Support Volunteers (PSV) offering specialist advice on cryptocurrency wallets. However, restrictions imposed upon the recruitment of volunteers, most notably through the requirements of vetting, limit the many opportunities for individuals, perhaps those with past criminal convictions or being less physically able to support the police.

AN OVERVIEW OF TARIAN

In Wales police volunteering is being reimagined under a programme entitled Virtual Volunteering. The essence of the programme is the creation of an online environment wherein many thousands of individuals can engage in seeking a solution to policing problems—Virtual Volunteers. The initial partners in the programme are the Tarian and USW. The initial idea was conceived by a police volunteer who was also a visiting fellow at USW and who was, therefore, able to situate the opportunity of engaging students in work-based learning and employability with USW and the benefits of engagement and participation through student volunteering with Tarian. He was able to negotiate the engagement of both partners who enthusiastically invested in the establishment of the pilot programme. The university, through the work of administrative staff in the department supporting students’ work placements, developed a site within the intranet which is named and branded as being from Tarian. The site provides a number of policing problems, romance fraud, AI-enabled crime, and money laundering. It should be noted that these problems have been chosen as they are ones that are of specific interest and concern to Tarian. It is imagined that other police agencies may well suggest different problems that might not be ‘crime’ specific but perhaps relate to issues concerning police practice or policy. The problems are then broken down into individual ‘modules’ that students can visit and complete with the system tracking the nature of their engagement, their completion of the modules and hours taken. The Tarian problem sites provide an initial overview of the ROCU in the form of a video presentation from the Detective Chief Inspector (DCI). This introductory video and accompanying logos and graphics ensure the students are made fully aware they are volunteering for the police. Within a number of the individual modules, students are required to complete learning activities, for example, research, reflective tasks, etc. The software program used by the university is presented as an online ‘game’ wherein it requires the students to complete each module in sequence before rewarding them with access to a prize, in this case, the Welsh police forces recruitment sites.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE POLICING PROBLEMS

One of the policing problems is related to Money Mules. Officers from Tarian ROCU faced a dilemma in creating effective prevention messaging for university students, most especially those from China who were vulnerable to being influenced or coerced into allowing organized crime groups to have access to their UK bank accounts. Such Money Mules and sometimes family members faced threats and incidents of violence. Traditional approaches, such as providing advisory leaflets or lectures were found to be ineffective. The modules within the Tarian site focussed on this problem and provide students with the background information through the use of YouTube videos and case studies. The modules then pose a number of questions to the student to which they are invited to provide an answer.

The module is not prescriptive in terms of the form such an answer should take and students are encouraged to be as innovative as they feel is appropriate. It is an obvious observation, but the students are ‘closest’ to the issues contained with the problem and therefore much better positioned to both understand the context and thereafter offer possible solutions. As the university intranet is available to every member of academic staff and student the modules and problems are structured in such a way that they seek to engage many different disciplines, for example, psychology, criminology, childhood studies, computer science, accountancy, etc. In so doing, it is hoped the suggested answers will be as informed as possible. It should be noted at this point that any expectation that this approach will routinely and immediately provide novel and/or revelatory solutions to policing problems would be misplaced. There are, it is suggested, no easy solutions to crime. However, what is hoped for is suggested solutions that might inform police thinking and approaches that thereby achieve incremental gains.

At this time, students completing the problem simply e-mail their solution directly to Tarian. All students who do so receive an e-letter of recognition from the DCI which they can then use within their CVs and job applications. Contained within the letter of recognition are links to the Welsh police force recruitment pages should the student be interested in undertaking more formal forms of volunteering or seeking a career in policing. However, it is believed this direct form of engagement with Tarian is unsustainable. There are a number of reasons for this, such as the possibility that the police may receive such a large number of solutions as it becomes unmanageable and also the quality of such solutions offered to date has been quite mixed, again drawing unnecessarily upon police resources. It is planned that for the next academic year—24/25—a different approach will be adopted. Staff from Tarian in consultation with academics from USW will ‘co-produce’ the problems and questions such that there is a greater alignment with academic study, for example, providing academic credits for completion of the problems, as well as an understanding as to what the police might be seeking in terms of the range, scope, and outline of solutions. Students will therefore initially submit their solutions to a group of perhaps post-graduate students who will undertake an assessment of their quality and relevance. Thereafter, only summaries of the solutions proffered as well as examples of innovative approaches will be sent to the police. Regrettably, no data is available at this time upon which to understand the impact or otherwise of the programme. What is anecdotally noted is the interest of the students in the volunteering opportunity, the engagement of academic staff with the programme and it is embedded within certain undergraduate degree modules but the frustration felt at times by the police at the poor quality of the students suggested solutions, an issue and concern that has no doubt been experienced by all academics.

It is important to note a number of overarching principles built into the Virtual Volunteers programme. The first is it is not simply designed as a form of consultation. It does though provide an opportunity for volunteering thereby creating public engagement, reassurance, and confidence in the police. It is specifically intended to address the many real issues and problems faced by the police. Through raising the problems and difficulties faced by the police with potentially thousands of individuals it is hoped a greater level of understanding will be reached by them. In summary, Virtual Volunteering is a solution that is in operation now in Wales and one that is looking for policing problems.

VIRTUAL VOLUNTEERING IN CONTEXT

Recent years have seen a substantial reduction in volunteer numbers throughout forces within the United Kingdom (Pepper et al., 2024), at a time when police resources have reduced despite increased demands. This particular configuration of events has created a specific opportunity to re-think what police volunteering means in a society where information communication technology has revolutionized the ways in which communication and engagement can be exercised. This new platform allows police organizations to provide a controlled environment through which sections of the community can offer new forms of voluntary assistance to the police. At the same time, secondary benefits of these relationships may include opportunities to engage with, and to learn from, particular community demographics leading to strengthened perceptions of police legitimacy. This reimagining of volunteering through the opportunities afforded by ICT is not new. Almost 20 years ago, Murray and Harrison (2005) alluded to Virtual Volunteering describing it as, ‘… the term coined to describe the use of information and communications technology (ICT) to permit some part of the volunteering process to be carried out at a distance from the organization’ (2005, p. 33).

Murray and Harrison (2005) note that the forms that virtual volunteering can take are wide and encompass, for example, research, translation services, mentoring, maintaining websites, providing specialist guidance, consultancy, policy development and training, amongst others. They go on to suggest that virtual volunteers differ from their more traditional counterparts in that they tend to be new to volunteering, are younger in age, more likely to be university educated and devote more time to their volunteering. Furthermore, they noted that virtual volunteers were often still in education and viewed their contribution as valuable as a means of developing career-relevant skills. It should also be noted that recent years have seen, according to Ruohonen and Backholm (2023), the growing phenomenon of informal digital volunteering (for example, facilitating effective communication in crisis situations). However, Murray and Harrison (2005) also identify challenges to the effective integration of ICT-enabled volunteering into organizations noting, for example, that they may have insufficient capacity to develop such opportunities, experience resistance to the use of new technology or find it difficult to reorient their work towards virtual solutions.

Volunteering in the 21st century is going through a number of shifts—one pertaining to the nature in which volunteers engage with those organizations or agencies to whom they offer their services. According to Macduff (2005), for example, volunteer participation is increasingly becoming ‘temporary, interim and occasional’ (Macduff 2005, p. 51) reflecting both the more fragmented ways in which paid employment is taken up in contemporary society and the agency which people increasingly bring to their lives. This, in part, relates to the challenges, identified by Rehnborg (2005), of understanding the motivations for individuals to engage as volunteers and a commitment to developing an infrastructure that supports volunteer engagement. Gazley (2005) noted that many of the emerging trends identified in volunteering highlight the need for more effective means of bringing together organizations and volunteers and articulating the ways in which volunteering meets the needs of both volunteers and those bodies which draw upon their time and effort. Furthermore, research conducted by Hansen Löfstrand and Uhnoo (2019) highlights the issue of accountability in regard to police volunteers and the legal status of their actions.

It is without doubt that the convergence of ICT and volunteering does provide a number of positives and negatives. Many of these are dependent on whether or not we conceptualize Virtual Volunteers as an initiative primarily directed towards higher education institutions (HEIs) and delivered via Virtual Learning Environments or whether we see Virtual Volunteers as a more expansive means of liaising with a variety of stakeholders and publics.

Taking the use of Virtual Volunteers within the HEI context first, it is possible to identify a number of strengths from the limited trials that have been undertaken to date. First, it is possible to identify a coherent synergy between HEIs and police institutions. They share a public service remit, with many post-1992 HEIs explicitly identifying with a public service ethos and with many engaging already with the police on projects. Second, the engaging of higher education students in tasks of the type likely to be provided by police institutions is likely to (1) result in a broadly acceptable spectrum of responses regardless of whether they elicit new ‘usable' insights, and (2) be compatible with the application of knowledge to ‘real world’ issues. Furthermore, within an HE setting, numerous opportunities exist for targeted requests for high-level knowledge and skills—particularly around tailoring specific tasks to students studying a particular subject at a particular level. For example, it would be tempting to imagine how this scheme could be run with post-graduate research students and the benefits that could ensue. What is clear is that there are clear synergies between policing and HEIs that could provide a lever for a reimagined police volunteer offer to students. For example, partnerships between charities and HEIs have been used in a range of innovative ways—from providing peer support to student victims of crime (Garius and Gove 2015) to supporting police efforts to solve cold cases (Oberweis et al., 2024). One of the key drivers of such engagement is the mixture of experience and employability opportunities that such relationships offer. Students who engage in police activities experience increased employability skills (Garius and Gove 2015) and claim that they develop skills that would enhance their ability to work as police officers (Pepper et al., 2024). Furthermore, work by Pepper and McGrath (2015) shows not only that practice-based experience increases students’ confidence to consider applying to the police, but also that 50% considered that the knowledge acquired would prove useful in their later career. However, questions remain over the extent to which Virtual Volunteering can encourage new forms of volunteering without sacrificing the ability to provide the kind of benefits outlined above. Similarly, Pepper (2014) highlighted the challenges for police forces in terms of mobilizing engagement amongst ethnic minority communities. Key to the success of the Virtual Volunteer project will be to broaden the appeal of the police as a vehicle for volunteering.

A fundamental potential weakness (or challenge) for Virtual Volunteers relates to the direction, and level, of benefit. In other words, whilst there may be substantial benefits for the students who engage with Virtual Volunteer schemes, we need to be mindful of the project’s ability to generate useful knowledge that justifies any police resources used to support the scheme. Second, to date, Virtual Volunteers has relied on committed individuals driving forward the project. It is worth considering, therefore, the extent to which this form of engagement can become normalized between HEIs and police organizations without the need for passionate champions of this cause. For this to occur, there is a need for both sides to see real and tangible value in its outcomes. Third, at a time of financial insecurity, and staffing reductions, within the HE sector, it might be the case that initiatives like this fail to become embedded due to an understandable focus on delivering core credit-bearing programmes. Similarly, on the police side, there may be a reluctance to see the worth in the project or to view it as being resource-heavy. Fourth, there may also be concerns over how best to test or assess the quality of the data produced. Finally, it might be that initiatives like Virtual Volunteers are perceived by some officers as undermining the knowledge, experience, and skills of officers.

When we expand our commentary to the broader, non-HE context opportunities for Virtual Volunteers, the following ideas were identified. In terms of strengths, the Virtual Volunteers model allows for a new way of engaging with volunteers in a way that lessens some of the barriers to engagement (e.g. bureaucracy, travel, inflexibility, etc.). At the same time, the ICT-facilitated dimension of this approach chimes with the growing acknowledgement that policing can be increasingly characterized as ‘knowledge work’ (Ericson and Haggerty 1997). This resonates with the findings of Murray and Harrison (2005), as noted above, that virtual volunteering, regardless of occupational sector, tends to encourage more specialized forms of volunteering input that address particular needs rather than low-level ongoing physical tasks. This could be taken to represent a fundamental upskilling of volunteering that makes it more akin to a partnership than traditional arrangements. There is an opportunity here for using the Virtual Volunteers platform as a means by which to engage with particular groups and, by doing so, to provide opportunities to restore or enhance legitimacy amongst different parts of the population. In this way, by engaging with stakeholders on a particular issue on a volunteering basis, the police can position themselves not just as actively consulting communities but as enlisting them as co-producers of solutions.

Further challenges exist. The nature of volunteering is changing and as identified by Macduff (2005), it is increasingly likely that volunteers, rather than organizations, dictate the nature and terms of that engagement. Therefore, whilst Virtual Volunteering in the context of higher education may provide real incentives to engagement through, for example, employability or career planning, it may be difficult to attractively position either volunteering per se, or volunteering within the context of particular tasks, to a public whose motivations to engage are varied, complex, and shifting. Furthermore, it would be interesting to ascertain the extent to which volunteering that is undertaken through the medium of a virtual environment generates, amongst volunteers, the same ‘feel good’ factor or rewarding opportunities for personal interaction, experienced by those who volunteer within the physical environment. A final hypothetical challenge posed by Virtual Volunteering is the possibility that, whilst providing opportunities for volunteering in ways that demand heightened levels of skill or expert knowledge, this could undermine public confidence in policing by flagging shortfalls of expertise.

In an evaluation of the Virtual Volunteers programme, Britton (2024) forwards five recommendations to support its future success. First, to refine the scheme’s current operation in HE settings so that it focuses in greater depth on the issues being addressed and to develop and test new methods of triaging the information directed to the police. Second, to formalize what Virtual Volunteers is and how it is delivered with a particular focus on data management, intellectual property, and governance. Third, to ensure that Virtual Volunteer projects embed evaluation in their delivery structure. Fourth, to develop a programme management model for Virtual Volunteering which will allow for managed growth to ensure consistency in delivery, strong communication, and effective evaluation. Fifth, and finally, to explore how Virtual Volunteers might work in non-HE settings and to understand any changes in delivery platform and project content that might be required.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, it can be said that Virtual Volunteering represents a profound opportunity to reset what we mean by police volunteering. It offers an efficient means of engaging with sections of the public and generating knowledge and solutions relating to the needs of the police. While it is recognized this commentary is ‘evidence-light’ the early indications suggest there are opportunities to conceive of virtual volunteering being adopted by other existing university and police partnerships, not just in the UK but internationally, as well as in different settings, for example, though prisoners volunteering for the police. However, there remain some substantial questions to be understood before the project can be fully evaluated. First, what is the primary focus of the initiative—to generate opportunities for engagement or answers to questions? Second, what are the challenges for upscaling from a police-HE initiative to one that engages fully with a range of publics? Third, how best can the police present this new mode of voluntarism to the public in a way that resonates and encourages engagement? Finally, what are the potential challenges to undermining police legitimacy by recognizing deficits of expert knowledge within police organizations. It is probably sensible to recognize that, whilst Virtual Volunteering shares some DNA with traditional police volunteering, it also signifies a revolutionary (as opposed to evolutionary) development. For this reason, we cannot assume that the Virtual Volunteers will deliver the same opportunities and face the same challenges as earlier iterations of volunteering and we need to be prepared for both intended and unintended consequences. As the work of Britton (2024) shows, the success of this new interpretation of police volunteering rests upon the need to articulate what is and what is not Virtual Volunteering, to understand the knowledge requirements of stakeholders, to embed evaluation, to introduce rigorous governance and programme management and to understand the scope for translation to a range of contexts.

Submitted for inclusion within the Special Edition: Reforming and re-imagining volunteer policing: international perspectives on growing and innovating police volunteering

Reforming and reimagining volunteer policing: international perspectives on growing and innovating police volunteering

Operational Commentary

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