Search results

The purpose of this paper is to highlight concerns about recent CPS guidance on the prosecution of rape and sexual assault cases.

The paper places the CPS guidance in the wider policy context of concerns about sexual violence on mental health wards.

The paper concludes that the reported CPS guidance appears to run counter to other policy directives particularly the recent report from the CQC.

The paper is a first response to these issues.

The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education in the UK focuses on maintaining, enhancing and standardising the quality of higher education. Of significant impact are the development of subject benchmark statements (SBS) by the QAA, which describe the type and content of study along with the academic standards expected of graduates in specific disciplines. Prior to 2022, the QAA did not have a SBS to which higher education policing programmes could be directly aligned.

Over 12-months, a SBS advisory group with representatives from higher education across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, The College of Policing, QAA, Police Federation of England and Wales and policing, worked in partnership to harness their collective professional experience and knowledge to create the first UK SBS for policing. Post publication of the SBS, permission was sought and granted from both the College of Policing and QAA for members of the advisory group to reflect in an article on their experiences of collaborating and working in partnership to achieve the SBS.

There is great importance of creating a shared vision and mutual trust, developed through open facilitated discussions, with representatives championing their cause and developing a collaborative and partnership approach to completing the SBS.

A collaborative and partnership approach is essential in developing and recognising the academic discipline of policing. This necessarily requires the joint development of initiatives, one of which is the coming together of higher education institutions, PSRBs and practitioner groups to collaborate and design QAA benchmark statements.

The SBS advisory group has further driven forward the emergence of policing as a recognised academic discipline to benefit multiple stakeholders.

The SBS for policing is the first across the UK. The authors experiences can be used to assist others in their developments of similar subject specific benchmarking or academic quality standards.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a scoping study that explored the extent of recorded sexual violence perpetrated on inpatients on mental health (MH) units.

A Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request was sent to 45 police forces. The FOI asked for the number of recorded offences of rape and sexual assault by penetration for the five years 2010-2015. Following the responses from the police, a similar FOI request was sent to MH trusts.

There were significant variations in the way that both police forces and MH trusts approached the recording of this information.

The research highlights variation and inadequacy of current recording practices in relation to sexual offences committed against inpatients on MH units.

There needs to be more consistent systems of recording of allegations of sexual assault and responses to them by agencies. In the trust recording of these incidents, it is recommended that a specific category of sexual violence is created. On a national level, the Office for National Statistics should produce a national data set that records the number of rapes that are committed in MH inpatient units.

This paper highlights the “gap” of information in relation to recorded rape and may indicate that complainants with a history of mental illness are less likely to have their allegation recorded as a crime.

Building on Kavaratzis and Hatch’s (2013) identity-based place branding model, this paper aims to explore the spatial and social dimensions of the place brand identity formation process and how residents used social media to participate in the process of shaping a city brand during a crisis.

Adopting an interpretive and social constructionist approach, this study analyses a sample of 187 short videos created and posted by Wuhan residents on the social media app Douyin during a COVID-19 lockdown. The authors read the videos as cultural texts and analysed underlying social processes in the construction of place brand identity by residents.

This study develops an adapted conceptual model of place identity formation unfolding in four sub-processes: expressing, impressing, mirroring and reflecting, and each sub-process subsumes two dimensions: the social and the spatial. In addition, this study empirically describes how residents participated in place branding processes in two ways, namely, their construction of city brand identity via communicative practice and their exertion of changes to a city brand during a crisis. The model reveals how place brands emerge and can be transformed.

This paper amplifies Kavaratzis and Hatch's (2013) identity-based place branding model by testing it in an empirical study and highlighting the social and spatial dimensions. This paper contributes to research about participatory place branding by exploring how residents participated in the place branding process. This study analysed short videos on social media, a new communication format, rather than textual narratives dominating past studies.

This paper aims to determine the nutritional profile of popular takeaway meals in the UK. Fast food has a poor nutritional profile; research has focused on the major catering chains, with limited data on takeaway food from independent establishments.

Random samples of takeaway meals were purchased from small, independent takeaway establishments. Multiple samples of 27 different takeaway meals, from Indian, Chinese, kebab, pizza and English-style establishments (n = 489), were analysed for portion size, energy, protein, carbohydrate, total fat, salt and total sugars.

Takeaway meals were inconsistent with UK dietary recommendations; pizzas revealed the highest energy content, and Chinese meals were lowest in total fat. However, there was a high degree of variability between and within categories, but the majority of meals were excessive for portion size, energy, macronutrients and salt.

The present study focused on energy, macronutrients, salt and total sugars. Future research should analyse the quality of fat and carbohydrates and micronutrients to provide a more detailed nutritional profile of takeaway food.

The nutritional variability between establishments suggests that recipe reformulation should be explored in an attempt to improve the nutritional quality of takeaway foods. In addition, portion size reduction could favour both the consumer and the industry.

Takeaway outlets do not provide nutritional information; due to the excessive nutritional profiles, regular intake may increase the risk of non-communicable disease. Therefore, there is a pressing need for this provision to help consumers make conscious food choices.

This is the first study to analyse energy and macronutrient content of independent takeaway meals in the UK.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how contemporary artists construct and position their “person brands” and reflects on the extent to which artist brand building results from strategic brand management.

A conceptual framework proposes a spatial perspective on artist brand building to reach an analytical insight into the case of visual artists in London. The empirical analysis is qualitative, based on serial and in-depth interviews, complemented by participant observations.

Artist brand building relies on the creation and continuous redefinition of “in-between spaces” that exist at the blurred boundaries separating an individual and isolated art studio, and the social and visible art scene. Artist brand building is a bundle of mechanisms that, mainly occurring without strategic thinking, are “nested” within the art production process throughout which learning, producing and performing are heavily intertwined.

This study was undertaken with a focus on visual artists and specific operations and spatialities of their individual art projects. Further empirical research is required in order to fully explore the manifold of practices and spatialities that constitute contemporary artistic practice.

This study fosters artists’ awareness of branding effects that spillover from artistic production, and thus potentially opens the way to a more strategic capitalization on these.

The adopted spatial perspective on the process of artist brand building helps to uncover “relatively visible” and “relatively invisible” spatialities that, usually overlooked in branding debate, play a significant role in artist brand building.