Thames Valley Police are leading the way in using Super Recognisers in the fight against the completely unacceptable levels of violence against women and girls. The UK Home Secretary has made tackling VAWG a key policing priority. The report below featured in Policing Insight. The text is pasted below.
Super recognisers’ key role in Thames Valley project targeting VAWG in the night-time economy - Policing Insight
Sexual harassment and sexual assault are worryingly common features of the night-time economy for many women and girls; now a novel policing tactic being utilised by Thames Valley Police, codenamed Project Vigilant, is seeking to address the problem with a preventative approach that exploits the unique talents of ‘super recognisers’, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.
It’s a depressing fact that the so-called night-time economy, whether pubs, bars, clubs or other spaces, is the setting for constant sexual harassment – as well as even more serious sexual offences.
One tactic being deployed by Thames Valley Police suggests a novel way policing can address VAWG, with so-called ‘super recognisers’ playing an important role.
This is, of course, no new problem. A 2018 report from the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee described women “being routinely harassed in bars and clubs at night to the extent that it is the norm on a night out”.
Adding to this, the Committee noted: “Our own research shows that sexual harassment is regarded as more socially acceptable when it takes place in a bar than in the street or in public generally, with one participant describing it as ‘part of the unwritten rules of a bar’.”
Recognising the need to address these issues, last week the Government added Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) to the strategic policing requirement, meaning police forces must treat these crimes as a top-tier, national threat.
Policing will now be under pressure to take tougher, more effective action, and must be more innovative to really make a difference. One interesting tactic being deployed by Thames Valley Police – codenamed Project Vigilant – suggests a novel way policing can address VAWG, with so-called ‘super recognisers’ playing an important role.
Super recognisers
Many in policing may have come across the term ‘super recognisers’ before. It was coined back in 2009 by academics at Harvard University and UCL’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience who ran tests on “four people who claimed to have significantly better than ordinary face recognition ability”. The results: “Exceptional ability… confirmed in each case.”
One super recogniser at West Midlands Police has spotted over 2,000 suspects since 2012, while others have been deployed at major events such as Notting Hill Carnival; they are even credited with helping catch the Russian agents responsible for the Salisbury attacks.
From this, the idea of ‘super recognisers’ was born, describing individuals with the opposite of prosopagnosia – “a condition marked by exceptionally poor face recognition ability”. Since then, another leading academic, Professor Josh Davis, has developed the field considerably.
Super recognisers – whether police officers or police staff – have been identified and deployed by many different forces. One super recogniser at West Midlands Police has spotted over 2,000 suspects since 2012, while others have been deployed at major events such as the Notting Hill Carnival; they are even credited with helping catch the Russian agents responsible for the Salisbury attacks.
With a growing debate around the role of artificial intelligence (AI) to recognise faces through live facial recognition, super recognisers offer an interesting human alternative. In an article for Policing Insight in 2018, Mike Neville, the CEO of Super Recognisers International, addressed exactly this.
He argued that: “Super recognition is a force multiplier adding value to CCTV capability. Super recognisers are not in competition with facial recognition systems, but work in parallel with such technology.” They certainly offer a unique skillset.
Project Vigilant
In recent times, super recognisers have played an interesting role in Project Vigilant – a proactive policing tactic developed by Thames Valley Police to tackle VAWG.
Vigilant was first launched in 2019, following a rise in non-domestic sexual offences in Oxford. Its aim is to identify people showing signs of potentially predatory behaviour – such as sexual harassment – and intervene pre-emptively, to prevent sexual offences from taking place.
To achieve this, Thames Valley Police deploys uniformed and plainclothes officers outside of nightclubs, pubs and bars, to identify individuals displaying this kind of behaviour. This is underpinned by the specialist training all Project Vigilant officers receive – so far, 150 Thames Valley staff have been through this process.
Rather than reactive policing, arresting those who have already committed sexual offences, this model is explicitly preventative. Uniformed Project Vigilant officers actively engage with individuals behaving in this way, explaining the behaviour that has raised concerns, and only rarely leading to immediate arrest.
Vigilant also uses a diversion scheme, with officers able to refer those stopped onto a bespoke intervention programme run by charity Circles South East, an organisation that seeks to boost desistance among sexual offenders.
The programme has already borne some success. Thames Valley Police claims that the pilot version of Project Vigilant (back in 2019) led to a 30% cut in sexual offences of this type. Fuller results are expected to emerge from a separate, three-year academic evaluation, and several other forces have already decided to copy this model.
There is, though, another crucial feature to Project Vigilant: all stops are recorded on officers’ body-worn video. And this is where the super recognisers come into play.
Super vigilance
Thames Valley Police has a three-step process to recruiting its super recognisers. First, officers are encouraged to complete the Greenwich test – a tool designed to identify those with exceptional facial recognition ability.
If they score nine or above, they are invited onto the next stage: an extended assessment that delves further into their skills. Pass this too and there’s a week-long training scheme, designed to show how this skill can be applied to the day-to-day work of fighting crime. These certified super recognisers can then be drafted to support Project Vigilant.
With every Vigilant stop recorded on body-worn video, Thames Valley Police are able to collect a database of suspect images. Super recognisers familiarise themselves with these images before going out on patrol with Vigilant; this means that – when deployed – they can identify individuals already known to police as engaging in potentially predatory behaviour.
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In addition to creating safer spaces, we have sought to increase the knowledge, understanding and operational skillset for officers across the Thames Valley in how to spot predatory behaviour by developing a bespoke training package.”
DI Tina Wallace, Thames Valley Police
The same goes for CCTV. Super recognisers can review CCTV images and spot potential offenders who have had previous contact with Vigilant officers. Pulling together the intelligence picture is the overriding focus of this work – a more holistic approach to taking on the sexual harassment behaviour that defines far too much of the night-time economy.
However, as the force points out, their super recognisers play a role in other contexts too. This includes deployment at large-scale events such as football matches or the annual Reading festival, as well as day-to-day support for policing. In addition the ‘super recogniser mailbox’ also picks up images of unknown people from across the force, enabling these individuals to be identified much more quickly.
Detective Inspector Tina Wallace, part of the Specialist Operations team at Thames Valley Police, emphasises the role of super recognisers: “Project Vigilant is a proactive initiative to prevent sexual offending in the night-time economy… super recognisers form part of our Project Vigilant cadre, this includes both police officers and police staff, whether they are deployed physically within the night-time economy or CCTV based.”
She added: “As well as being adept at recognising faces, our super recognisers have given other officers and staff the confidence to take the Greenwich test. This test has led Thames Valley Police officers and staff to being assessed as super matchers. These are individuals who are super skilled at recognising a face from a previous photograph they have seen.”
There are also broader benefits of Project Vigilant across the force’s work, as DI Wallace explains: “In addition to creating safer spaces, we have sought to increase the knowledge, understanding and operational skillset for officers across the Thames Valley in how to spot predatory behaviour by developing a bespoke training package. The skills taught are transferrable to other areas of policing in a plain clothes or uniform capacity.”
The future of policing
Project Vigilant is an interesting case study of how policing can be done differently. Proactive not reactive, prevention-led rather than arrest-first, it’s a fresh approach to a deep-rooted issue.
To quote evidence submitted to the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee in 2018: “Harassment isn’t just expected, it’s accepted. It is a cultural norm and women are no longer surprised to be hassled, harassed or assaulted. Many never report it, they just see it as a normal part of a night out.” More innovative approaches like Vigilant might be part of the solution to this problem.
Project Vigilant also raises other questions about the role of technology. In an era where AI is the watchword and ChatGPT is now a household name, the role of super recognisers is revealing.
Perhaps in policing, as in other sectors, the answer is human and machine working together. Can live facial recognition be augmented with a (super)human recogniser element? Or does this create as many ethical problems as it solves? Only time will tell.
