Modern Slavery in Staffordshire: Assessing the Risks and Aiding Prevention

The MoRiLE process which assists police forces to understand the range of threats and risks facing the public identified that crimes against the vulnerable presented some of the greatest risk to the safety of people across Staffordshire. These crimes include modern-day slavery. A recent HMIC (changed to HMICFRS) inspection report focusing on Crime Data Integrity has also shown that whilst Staffordshire Constabulary have a good basic knowledge of modern slavery offences, their understanding is limited and they accepted that more work is needed both nationally and regionally to better understand the issues of modern slavery in order to improve the policing response to the issue.

Nonetheless, the force is reported as being increasingly aware of the potential for this type of crime and had the highest rate in England and Wales for referral to the NCA for modern slavery. Given this, the proposed project seeks to aid improved understanding and development of risk factors associated with modern slavery through utilisation of police and partner agency data. The hope is that this project will act as an evidence base for the police and their partners to aid in the early identification of such crimes and implement more specific early interventions to better police the issue.

The School of Law Policing and Forensics
The School of Law Policing and Forensics at Staffordshire University are inviting applications for Partial Scholarship PhD projects within our school. This scheme gives you the opportunity to enrol on to a PhD project without having to pay any tuition fees. In exchange for this, you would be expected to provide a maximum of 250 hours of teaching support to the Academic Staff. Please note, that no bursary or any other funding will be provided.

If you have any further questions regarding the scheme, please contact Dr Graham Williams at [Email Address Removed]

Applications
To apply, in the first instance contact the relevant supervisor with your interested project who will discuss the project with you and advise you on how to apply for the PhD. You will need to contact the supervisor directly before applying for the PhD project.