Research evidence, technological innovation and scientific standards in policing workstream report

Barriers and facilitators to technological innovation

Author: Matthias Wienroth and Megan O'Neill

3.1 Innovation in policing and crime prevention

Technological innovation refers to research, development and deployment of new devices, materials, equipment, but also of procedures and processes, including software, novel services (e.g. forensic services) and systems (e.g. novel data aggregation and exchange), and analysis approaches. A vital element in technological innovation is that of socio-legal, political and practice innovations: novel changes in the way that things are understood, done, and governed. For policing this means that innovation in technology also affects how policing is understood and provided, and it may require changes in practice and oversight [3]. For example, when DNA profiling enabled DNA databasing, changes in law and in policing practices have had to accompany technological innovation in order to enable DNA databasing. As such, when we consider technological innovations, we need to consider these as part of wider socio-technical processes [4]. Key questions arising from this pertain to how novel technological innovations draw from, and contribute to, existing user practices, technologies and systems, and how expectations about technology's contribution to desired futures function as barrier, facilitator and modulator to change [5, 6, 7].

The concept of the adoption space provides an analytical focus for sociotechnical change as it provides a lens through which to analyse how and why technologies may or may not be adopted into practice. This lens describes a dynamic spatial and temporal space ... populated by human and non-human actors ... where attitudes, practices, interactions and events, together with the technology's material features, shape technology perceptions in ways that are instrumental in decisions about its use [8]. The concept alerts to the wide range of actors, organisational and ecological factors that are aspects of technological

innovation and how it links to practice. It also provides a way of understanding how technologies may be adapted into practice, that is how they are perceived and used not necessarily as intended by those who developed the technologies. One key analytical aspect here is that of technology identities (ibid.). These refer to understandings of how a technology may work and impact on society, including on relationships between different social actors and on the organisation of social life. Technology identities are socially constructed and relate to novelty, effectiveness, utility, risks and requirements and as such shape the desirability, acceptability and adoptability (ibid.) of technologies. The way that technologies are perceived by stakeholder groups contributes to their adoption or their rejection in practice, or the need for further adoption work to render the innovation reliable, useful, and legitimate to stakeholders. As such, adoption space and technology identities mark the need to involve diverse stakeholder groups and to understand not only a technology, but its wider sociotechnical field, in order to identify and approach barriers and facilitators of innovation.

Significant research on barriers and facilitators for technological innovation has been conducted in the health domain, and to a lesser extend in the policing domain. We draw from both domains to identify key aspects for barriers and facilitators to technological innovation in the first part of this report, and in the second part apply this to emerging policing technologies in Scotland.

3.2 Key dimensions of barriers and facilitators

McNeil et al. [9] provide an exceptionally rich account of barriers and facilitators of technology innovation in the health care system of Canada and suggest six dimensions within which to analyse and address these: development, assessment, implementation, policy context, resources, and partnerships/communication. The authors challenge the strong commercial focus of technology procurement in Canadian health technology policy; critique the siloed approach to innovation as preventing meaningful communication and mutual understanding between different stakeholders; and suggest a longer-term focus for innovations that exchanges an emphasis on cost containment with one of value to the domain. With value they refer to contributions of technological innovation to achieving the goals and priorities of policy, users, and society, and to addressing user needs, without prioritising one over the other. The following section offers a summary of four out of the six dimensions and their most relevant barriers and facilitators as they can be transferred to policing.

3.2.1 Key barriers and facilitators in four dimensions of technology innovation

Development

Dimension: [9] (Page 205).

Barriers:

• Exclusion of groups
• Reinforcing hierarchical social arrangements
• Lack of awareness of goals and needs of the application field (e.g. focus on easily commercializable technologies that do not meet user needs)
• Focus on empowering users
• Uncritical comparison with other countries

Facilitators:

• Local seed funding to spur innovation activities
• Building awareness among developers of needs and unmet priorities
• Opportunities for developers to consult with user groups early in the development
• Developers incorporating user groups' feedback into development

Implementation

Dimension: [9] (Page 208-209).

Barriers:

• Competitive model of procurement focused on cost-containment may disadvantage more innovative products
• Focus on short-term outcomes of innovations may prevent gains only realisable in the longer term
• Block-procurement may disadvantage smaller, local developers
• Commercial focus

Facilitators:

• Enhanced collaboration via risk-sharing and value-based pricing
• Move to value-based procurement with a focus on the life cycle of technologies and on user outcomes
• Develop support materials for procurement ('how to')
• Enable universities to be involved and hold IP
• Develop metrics that consider societal impacts of technological innovations
• Develop insight into how technology is transferred into practice

3.2.2 Resources

Dimension [9] (Page 210).

Barriers:

• Allocation on basis of 'what we have always done' or political factors can disadvantage investment into innovative development
• Focus on cost-containment
• Fee-for-service basis of resource allocation does not provide incentive to participate in innovation, nor on the value of the service to the field due to a focus on cost

Facilitators:

• Tax credits for innovation
• Identify successful programmes and scale these up
• Value-based approach to resource allocation (what do we aim to achieve, rather than what does this cost)

3.2.3 Partnerships/communication

Dimension: [9] (Page 210).

Barriers:

• Inconsistent consultation with users and publics
• Lack of robust inclusion of their views into innovation
• Publicly inaccessible needs and delivery plans of users
• Lack of signposting through bureaucracy and to seed funding
• Lack of collaboration on understanding the value of a technology
• Lack of communication between innovators, policy-makers and oversight bodies
• Differences in motivations and priorities unclear

Facilitators:

• Forming early partnerships across stakeholders during innovation process
• Involving users in testing early
• Forming partnership entities to better translate research into practice
• Developing a collaborative environment with communication tools that enable trust, information sharing, understanding etc.

For the policing domain, Laufs and Borrion [10] provide a practitioner-based analysis of key barriers and facilitators for technological innovation in policing practice. Their analysis reflects key elements identified in the previous section, but with a narrower focus. They were surprised by the higher-than-expected openness to innovation but identify a significant level of scepticism. The authors' key findings comprise:

1. Efficiency and effectiveness are portrayed as key facilitators for users to accept technological innovation: If innovations can reliably and evidently enhance efficiency and effectiveness in policing practice, they are more likely to be welcomed and adopted. This suggests that, in turn, a lack of evidence would present a barrier to adoption into practice.

2. However, a key barrier to innovation can be lack of interoperability with existing systems, both within a force as well as between different agencies cooperating with the force: lack of compatibility, new user interfaces, limited functionality arising from using different technological capacities in one system.

3. Another identified barrier is that of social acceptability. From a user perspective this was seen to be a strategic concern to be addressed at organisational and political levels where it can lead to a rejection of adoption into practice. It is a key barrier to innovation, and can occur both externally (e.g., public protest) and internally in policing (e.g., resistance by practitioners). Metrics of benefit to public order (e.g., crime reduction) are raised as potential means to address acceptability, but difficulties in producing reliable metrics may require qualitative approaches to understanding and engaging with social acceptability instead.

4. Practical impacts can offer significant burdens for technology adoption where innovations can affect established daily routines; administrative processes such as workload, communicating and reporting; workspace design. Repeatedly, Laufs and Borrion point to the potential discrepancy between front-line workers and management in perceiving barriers and facilitators such as these.

5. Political and financial commitments can function as facilitator to innovation uptake: Laufs and Borrin identify such commitments as vital for developing a supportive ecology within which innovations can be introduced and adopted: Flexible and innovation-open structures with strong, visibly supportive leadership and clear innovation adoption guidelines.

6. Public-private partnerships are raised as an issue based on the need for collaboration, pointing to private developments that may be out of control of police and can potentially interfere with policing needs.

3.3 Lessons for technology innovation in policing

Throwing technology at policing practices tends not to lead to successful adoption unless a fruitful ecology, including flexible structures and a strong institutional framework (Garicano and Heaton [11]; Mastrobuoni [12]), as well as sustainable innovation practices exist. The two above discussed studies provide a rich tapestry for drawing lessons for technology innovation in policing. This section attends to three key areas of immediate interest for consideration: procurement, change in practices, and social acceptability. They address elements of development, implementation, and overall legitimacy of sociotechnical change in policing.

3.3.1 Procurement

Decisions and practices of law enforcement can influence decisions by researchers and commercial providers, e.g., which areas to invest into, what types of innovations to propose, and how to strategically promote specific innovation trajectories. A key barrier to research and development for technology innovation can be procurement practices as the availability of finance – as well as the capacity to build lasting partnership (e.g., [13]) – impact on the capacity for investment and development of sociotechnical innovation.

Commercial providers, within a system of block-procurement, will focus on low-cost technology development and offer of services that can easily and quickly show results. This may be a detriment to a longer-term strategy of innovations where short-termism causes either a lack of longer-term effects, or – in the shape of a stop-and-start approach – necessitates extra efforts and funding over time to continue research and development.

The UK forensic DNA market, for example, has lost its innovative edge it held during the years of the Forensic Science Service (up until 2012) because commercial service providers focus on delivering low-cost services that are requested by police via block-procurement, where police forces have been satisfied that these services – e.g. DNA profiling, paternity/maternity testing – deliver reliable results and are used sufficiently frequently. More complex, and innovative services – such as the genetic analysis of body fluids, genetic age, or appearance traits – have more recently been developed outside the UK since police forces in England and Wales tend not to request these. Block procurement makes it more difficult to request specialist services, they are of higher cost, and police forces are less certain about the utility of these analyses. As such, past and current decisions about what technologies to procure have impacted on the availability of capacities for conducting innovative research and development (cf. Gallop and Brown [14]).

Procurement benefits from an analysis of needs, capacities in existing practice to adopt to be procured technologies and services, and from a longer-term perspective on which partnerships to develop and which longer-term aims to pursue.

3.3.2 Change in practice and culture

Innovation has become a key value of policing, next to accountability and legitimacy. These are political commitments that need translation into practice domains of policing in order to encourage the investment into and uptake of technological innovation. Laufs and Borrin [10] refer to political and financial commitments as a potential barrier or facilitator, depending on strength and effect. Therefore, leadership plays a vital role in the innovation process. Sufficient organisational and financial support for development and implementation, adequate training, clear guidelines and rules, can facilitate innovation. Perception of lack of support from superiors and from policy on the other hand may reduce benefits, delay, or even bring to a halt innovation processes (Koper et al.[15])

Whereas McNeil et al. [9] identified a focus on empowering users, and the entrenchment of social hierarchies as key barriers to innovation development, Skogan and Hartnett [16] suggest that these two may help in the adaption, or implementation of innovation into policing practices, based on their interviews and survey of police officers' uptake of information technology. This reflects on potential rejection by those who may feel threatened by innovative devices, procedures, or systems as barriers to innovation (Laufs and Borrion [10]) and suggests that involvement of users in decision-making about introducing technology into policing can facilitate their useful uptake into practice. Concerns around how new technologies can impact on performance requires understanding of what the technology can and cannot do, but also requires the technology to be capable of addressing needs and priorities of policing users. A significant hurdle to adoption can arise from the imposition of innovation on existing structures, either to replace them, or to reshape them significantly, without evidencing the value of doing so, and without drawing on stakeholder groups such as users in the design, implementation, and deployment of new technologies. Incompatibility of old and new systems, practices, devices etc. can mean a significant barrier to innovation in practice. Organizational structures and cultures play a key role in the adoption of technology into policing and can significantly affect the extent and nature of this process (Bullock et al. [13], Manning [17]) Understanding and ensuring interoperability is an often-praised goal for innovation, but such interoperability can also lead to a loss in legitimacy via public criticisms of function creep, as can be seen in the use of cross-database searches (see, e.g., [18, 19].

The capacity for adoption, therefore, depends on whether the technology affects relatively easy to accommodate aspects of practice, e.g., when considering the use of taser, or whether it requires a more comprehensive, perhaps even systemic change, e.g., when considering the introduction of facial recognition software and hardware, which will see police forces likely also engage in juridical and social debates, as seen in the case of South Wales police using live facial recognition at football events and other public spaces since 2018.

However, the ways that technologies have been developed, and existing technological systems and practices may prevent certain uses or aspects of uses (what Bijker and Law [20] have referred to as 'path-dependency' and 'lock-ins'). These need to be clarified in conversation with diverse stakeholder groups during the development and implementation phases.

3.3.3 Social acceptability

Over time, technologies may take on new roles and their use new forms, showing innovation in practice with existing technologies, e.g., the use of CCTV and body-worn video cameras for facial recognition purposes. Such changes may be easier to implement, and innovation is more likely to be adopted, when technology innovations enable the enhanced and/or widened use of existing capabilities, what Laufs and Borrion [10] have referred to as concerns around efficiency and effectiveness. However, the development of further uses of technology and data, of interoperability between different systems and technologies, may negatively affect their social acceptability. In order to understand concerns and already in the design of technologies take public and critical views into considerations, engagement with wider stakeholder groups outside policing and policy rooms is vital. Social and cultural aspects, such as prejudices and institutional bias, can be translated into and proliferated by technological innovation, even lead to aggravating inequality in the lives of communities. This may not necessarily be an issue of the underlying science – although more attention needs to be paid to assumptions and choices that inform technology development – but does sound science necessarily translate into sound policing practice? Does the understanding of a scientifically successful deployment of a technology equate to one of successful policing use?

3.4 Considerations

Consideration 5: Technology innovation is not just about getting the technology right, but about sociotechnical change which includes cultural change in practice, institutions, and oversight. Successful adoption into practice needs to take into consideration stakeholder perceptions, existing systems and practices at practitioner, policy and oversight levels, and a variety of other elements that may be impacted on and are likely to have to innovate at the same time.

All of these elements can and should be considered in an equality impact assessment. There is a legal requirement on Police Scotland to publish their assessments proposed new or revised policies – including those relating to the development and adoption of new technology and artificial intelligence – against the needs of the Public Sector Equality Duty. This process helps Police Scotland better understand the aims and impacts of the policy and how they relate to equality. It also helps them frame mitigating actions where appropriate, for example to take steps to address negative stakeholder perceptions of new technology, eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations.

Consideration 6: Technology innovation is a longer-term process, also at the implementation level. This means that decisions about procurement, replacing of systems, changes to practices, need to focus on establishing understanding and the willingness to experiment, e.g., in small-scale test-runs.

Consideration 7: Technological innovation is about partnership. Developing stable, longer-term mutual collaboration with industry, academia, public representatives, various relevant agencies and across the police force can strengthen the capacity for sociotechnical change, encourage benefits to arise from such change, and render innovation socially more acceptable.