Police use of the new Covid-19 powers: Using administrative data to analyse and evaluate practice
McVie and fellow collaborators at the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research (SCADR)
Research questions:
The report scrutinises Police Scotland's use of temporary new powers of enforcement introduced to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and asks the following questions:
- Are the temporary powers being used appropriately, with enforcement being used only as a last resort?
- What is the public's perception of the police use of these temporary powers?
Type(s) of inequality and how inequality is defined:
Differences in the use of the powers in terms of absolute numbers and rates per capita.
Approach or method used:
Certain social groups are over-represented in the criminal justice system. This includes minority ethnic groups, younger people and men. This over-representation is partly a result of differences in offending behaviour and partly a result of systemic effects which act to select some people into the justice system more than others. Our research will examine the extent to which there are inequalities in justice system contact as a result of age, sex and socio-economic status, as well as other factors. We will also examine the extent to which social change has impacted on the relationship between justice inequalities and individual outcomes.
Our current active research projects on justice inequalities are listed below (these link closely with our research on Crime, Socio-Economic, Age and Gender inequalities).