PhD researcher invited to lecture at Polish Police Academy

Criminologist Monika Baylis lectured to 200 police officers seeking promotion to higher ranks

A UNIVERSITY of Huddersfield researcher is introducing hundreds of high-flying police officers in Poland to distinctive dimensions of UK-style law enforcement, including unarmed officers and the concept of policing by consent.

Monika Baylis is completing her doctoral research at Huddersfield, where she is supervised by the criminologist Professor Rachel Armitage, who heads its Secure Societies Institute.

When she presented a paper at the European Society of Criminology conference in Cardiff, Monika – who is Polish-born – met Izabela Nowicka and Aleksandra Nowak, key figures from Poland’s Police Academy, which leads research on policing in the country and is attended by officers studying for the degrees they need to qualify for promotion to higher ranks.

Monika has carried out research into both British and Polish policing – her conference paper covered differing approaches to anti-social behaviour in the two countries – and she was asked to deliver lectures to students at the Academy, with her fluency in the language conferring a major advantage.

The Police Academy is located in the city of Szczytno, in north-eastern Poland, so it was most feasible for Monika to deliver her lecture from Huddersfield, via Skype.  She was invited to speak on the subject of British policing to an audience of 200, mostly police officers, plus students taking Master’s degrees in criminology.

She provided an outline of the history of the British police, the philosophy of policing by consent, the decentralised structure of police in the UK, the relatively small number of different ranks and the fact that part-time volunteers – Special Constables – have a role to play.  She also covered topics such as cyber-crime, safeguarding of children, domestic violence and terrorism.

The fact that British officers patrol unarmed was of special interest to the Polish audience.

“For them, it was very strange that British police do not carry a gun,” said Monika, who also spoke about armed response units in the UK when she fielded questions from her remote audience.

Policing in Poland is undergoing modernisation, said Monika – who has recently blogged on the subject for British Society of Criminology – and she believes that lessons could be learned from the British experience.

“For example, they can learn from policing by consent and that the zero tolerance approach that is used now with crowd control in Poland doesn’t pay off.”

Monika is pleased with the success of her first lecture for the Police Academy and now there is a prospect of further collaboration.  Meanwhile, she is writing up her PhD thesis, which focuses is on how police deal with anti-social behaviour among young people.  To gather research material, she has joined officers in Poland and the UK during lengthy shifts on patrol. 

Monika left Poland as a child and learned English when her family settled in Canada.  She relocated to the UK in 2002 and became a qualified interpreter, called on by police, courts, probation services and local authorities.  This led to an interest in criminology, and she enrolled for a BA in the subject at the University of Huddersfield.

When she obtained First Class Honours, she was awarded a scholarship so that she could go directly to PhD research.