Matthew Bacon’s research while affiliated with The University of Sheffield and other places

... Following publication of the original article (Stevens et al., 2023), a mistake in the reference citation of Hendrie et al. (2023aHendrie et al. ( , 2023bHendrie et al. ( , 2023c found on the first paragraph under "The evaluated PDD schemes" section has been corrected. ...

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Correction: Evaluating police drug diversion in England: protocol for a realist evaluation

... Alternative sanctioning for drug-related offences now tends to refer to "drug using offenders" (Kruithof et al., 2016) who end up in the criminal justice system; yet it could be argued this approach could also be applied to people getting involved in the illegal drug market without necessarily being users of illicit drugs. This can be understood the same way as diversion measures for simple drug possession are defined as initiatives that 'direct people away from criminal sanctions and towards educative, therapeutic or social services' (Bacon, 2023). In Belgium (Plettinckx et al., 2017) as in The Netherlands (Rijksoverheid, 2024), out of a total of 13 identified by Kruithof et al. (2016) the following ATP are available: probation, conditional release, mediation, community service, and electronic monitoring. ...

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Assessment of the recent judicial approach towards “uithalers” of cocaine in the Dutch Rotterdam harbour

... The concept of 'harm reduction' has been used to delineate policies and programs aimed at reducing the harms associated with drug use without necessarily eliminating or reducing drug use itself. In that regard, it has been argued that the principles of harm reduction could be applied to the field of drug policing to reorient policing away from focusing on drug law enforcement and toward addressing broader issues associated with illicit drug use and distribution (Caulkins & Reuter, 2009;Stevens, 2013;Shiner, 2016;Beckett, 2016;Bacon, 2016;Spicer, 2021;Bacon & Spicer, 2023). Furthermore, harm reduction policing can also include a focus on the broader safety and security of PWUDs Houborg et al., 2023;Kammersgaard, 2019), which is important as this group is much more likely to be subjected to violent victimization than the general population (Stevens et al., 2007;Seid et al., 2021). ...

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'It has gotten a lot better, but it is still bad': Experiences with the police among marginalized PWUDs in a context of depenalization

... (Foreword, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, HM Government, 2021, p.4) However, as Bacon and Spicer (2022) argue, there is an underlying assumption that this focus on disrupting and breaking drug supply chains will directly reduce violence. They point to concern and evidence that crackdowns and enforcement in general can actually have the unintended consequences of amplifying and increasing drug market violence (see Werb et al., 2011). ...

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The framing of contemporary violence policy in England and Wales: An examination of the contributing roles of alcohol and illegal drugs

... 13 Additionally, the emotional and moral dimensions of informants remain surprisingly neglected, with recent research setting out an agenda for moral significance, emotional disruption and the power dynamics at work. 14 However, there are significant contributions made by informants to crime reduction, counter-terrorism and community safety, although formal recognition of this public service involved is largely silent. The accompanying narrative to informants is widely pejorative. ...

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Exploring the Motivation of the United Kingdom’s Domestic Extremist Informants

... As part of the agency's myriad changes, police agencies might view intervention as a way to introduce a turning point (Laub and Sampson 1993;Bacon 2022) to implement organizational justice principles (Greenberg 2009). In particular, the pattern or practice method may erode interactional justice (Bies and Moag 1986). ...

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Reforming 'pattern-or-practice' police reform: what works, what does not, and where we need to go

... For example, the partnership between practitioners and University of Chicago researchers in early 1900s Chicago laid the foundation for one of criminology's core theoretical frameworks -social disorganisation -and also created the Chicago Area Project, which continues today (CAP, 2022). In the mid-20 th century, initiatives by Berkley Police Chief August Vollmer connected police officers with University of California academics to improve officer education and professionalise the service (Bacon et al., 2021). These early partnerships helped to build connections between the often-siloed researcher and practitioners and eventually became the foundation for future policing research, including guiding the creation of the American Society of Criminology's Division of Policing in 2016 (Bacon et al., 2021;Telep, 2014). ...

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And you know, we’re on each other’s team: Lessons from an in-depth analysis of researcher–practitioner partnerships in criminal justice research

... The ethnographic approach to qualitative research involves studying a cultural sharing group (Creswell and Poth, 2018). According to Bacon et al. (2020), ethnographies of police help the outside reader understand the internal workings and reasoning of officers and the police organization. They argue, "as a methodological approach, ethnography has proven unparalleled for penetrating the inner world of police organizations and examining the working rules, tacit understandings and underlying assumptions that operate beneath" (p. ...

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An ethnographic study of police culture in a rural Kansas police agency

... Contemporary discourse in the field of public health, drawing upon diverse research traditions, underscores the significance of social determinants in shaping health disparities and asserts that effective mitigation of these disparities necessitates the implementation of population-level interventions (Gehring et al., 2022). However, scholars have asserted that relying solely on 'persuasion' and 'command and control' strategies for intervention is insufficient (Bacon & Seddon, 2020;Ritter, 2010). Notably, market-driven regulation has been suggested to have the potential to mitigate the harms associated with drug use for some time (Ritter, 2010), further evidenced by proactive support from consumer groups (Measham & Turnbull, 2021). ...

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"They sent it away for testing and it was all bunk": Exploring perspectives on drug checking among steroid consumers in Queensland, Australia