Homicide prevention | College of Policing

This homicide prevention framework brings together the best available evidence to support police forces to:

analyse and understand their crime problems
develop and implement effective interventions and tactics
identify where partnership support is needed

It has been developed jointly with the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) as part of the national homicide prevention strategy.

Homicide problem-solving guide

How to take a problem-solving approach to homicide prevention.

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Smarter practice

Smarter practice refers to activity that has been tried in a force, reviewed jointly by the College of Policing, HMICFRS and NPCC, written up to share with other forces, and considered suitable for further testing.

Rapid debrief process – Essex Police

How Essex Police operates a rapid debrief process for incidents of homicide or serious violence that could have resulted in homicide

Operation Provide – Lancashire Constabulary

Operation Provide is a multi-agency programme and joint collaboration, developed to improve the response to victims of domestic abuse

A&E navigators – South Yorkshire Police

Providing support to patients who enter accident and emergency with a violence-related injury.

Multi-agency child exploitation (MACE) team – Norfolk Constabulary

Putting young people at the centre of serious violence prevention

Prevention First – Hertfordshire Constabulary

The Prevention First strategy embeds prevention in the force’s approach to reducing all crime types, including homicide and serious violence.

Clear, hold, build – West Yorkshire Police and Merseyside Police

Framework for bringing serious and organised crime group threats into neighbourhood policing.

Operation Rasure – Thames Valley Police

Operation Rasure uses data analysis to focus activity on hot spot areas, and identify individuals causing harm and those vulnerable to their activity

Whole system approach – Leicestershire Police

Leicestershire Police is using a whole system approach to prevent homicide, by tackling serious violence as a driver

Habitual knife carrier index – Sussex Police

Targeting multi-agency interventions to divert individuals from current or future involvement in knife crime

PPIED – Greater Manchester Police

A trauma-responsive and collaborative intervention to identify and offer support services for young people engaged in repeat offending.

Research and resources

Our guidance, research and resources that focus on key areas for homicide prevention

Serious violence and vulnerability

Resources for tackling serious violence, including vulnerability and violent crime interventions

Alcohol and drug misuse

Resources for tackling the misuse of alcohol and drugs, including the drug crimes evidence briefing

Domestic abuse

Resources for tackling domestic abuse, including the violence against women and girls toolkit

Crime reduction toolkit

Summaries of the best available research evidence on what works to reduce crime

Research projects map

Ongoing research related to policing and crime reduction at Masters level and above, including summaries of relevant randomised control trials