Future police officers trained to better understand disability hate crime

Students from the Professional Policing course at NTU have taken part in the Dimensions training

Dimensions, a leading not-for-profit organisation supporting people with learning disabilities and autism, has partnered with NTU as part of its #ImWithSam campaign to tackle autism and learning disability hate crime.

To raise awareness of this issue, Dimensions created Sam, a fictional character to represent people who have experienced autism and learning disability hate crime, and works with people with lived experience and multiple partners across the sector.

The #ImWithSam campaign remains more crucial than ever, as recent research conducted by Dimensions reveals that only 25% of the public think society is inclusive of people with learning disabilities and autism, and that 6% of UK adults admit to having physically hurt someone because of their learning disability or autism – equivalent to 3.6 million people.

Following successful training within a police force, Dimensions made its learning disability and autism hate crime e-learning available online and free for all police colleagues.

As part of this, Dimensions has delivered the training in-person and online to NTU Professional Policing students to help those entering the police force to better understand this type of hate crime and communicate with people with learning disabilities and autism.

Dimensions will also be working with the University’s Criminology and Policing department to develop materials for lecturers, which will encourage them co-host sessions alongside people with lived experience of learning disability and autism hate crime.

With the aim to introduce the training across other universities, NTU researchers Professor Loretta Trickett and Associate Professor Irene Zempi are evaluating the impact of the training by mapping feedback against objectives and providing Dimensions with suggestions for improvement. The findings will be presented to Dimensions and the College of Policing in a briefing paper outlining how to best use the training as part of university Policing courses.

Professor Trickett and Dr Zempi commented: “Evaluation of this training is important in order to identify its strengths as well as areas for improvement. We hope to provide Dimensions and the College of Policing with comprehensive feedback on the value of this training and its effectiveness in achieving its set goals.”

Martin Tangen, course leader for BA (Hons) Professional Policing at NTU, stated: "Hidden disability and neurodiversity are critical conditions that affect and impact upon modern policing. The work we have done with Dimensions in order to raise our future police officers awareness of these issues is crucial to those officers providing a better service to victims, witnesses and suspects who may have such a condition. By raising their awareness and giving them information about these conditions, those future officers will have a greater understanding, and be able to provide a better and more considerate service to the public."

Sarah Walters, campaigns manager at Dimensions, added: “The recent research conducted by Dimensions sends a clear message that we need to do more to raise awareness of, and tackle, learning disability and autism hate crime. Partnering with Nottingham Trent University on this training gives the opportunity for us to educate the next generation of police officers, criminologists, and lawyers about this type of hate crime, and what they can do to sensitively and effectively support victims.”

Dr Mark Brookes MBE, campaigns advisor at Dimensions, said: "This is a great opportunity to work with universities to tell them about people with learning disabilities and autistic people, and to train the next generation of front-line police officers."