Disrupting predatory behaviour in the night-time economy (Project Vigilant)

The aim of Project Vigilant is to actively prevent sexual violence in the night-time economy (NTE) by targeting those who seek to prey on vulnerable people. This is a perpetrator-focused approach.

• Understand the depth and scale of predatory offending in the NTE and public spaces.
• Target those who enter public spaces and demonstrate predatory behaviours. Disrupt them prior to committing an offence.
• Apply risk management protocols to those who have been identified through their predatory activities.
• Upskill frontline officers in spotting predatory behaviour.
• Upskill frontline workforce in proactive policing methodology.
• Gather data to support an evidence-based policing approach and support the violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy.

The intended outcome is to prevent crime by adopting a proactive policing strategy to create safer spaces. This initiative is proven to support the force crime prevention strategy.

Thames Valley Police uses bespoke behaviour observation training to upskill frontline officers. Once trained, officers are deployed into the NTE to proactively identify predatory sexual behaviour. Uniformed officers intervene to prevent this behaviour escalating into an offence.

The plain-clothed officers patrol designated areas, such as outside of clubs and bars. The patrols occur at days and times identified as highest risk for sexual offences. The plain-clothed officers seek to identify potentially predatory behaviour. Such behaviour may include individuals following, leering at, or harassing others.

Once the apparently predatory behaviour has been identified, the plain-clothed officers communicate with their uniformed colleagues who then directly intervene. Plain-clothed officers do not approach members of the public unless there is an immediate risk of harm.

Risk management process

Risk management processes manage any ongoing risk the stopped individuals pose. Each person stopped is assessed against a risk matrix system. This allows officers to assign specific treatment to the individual based on the level of risk they are assessed at.

The force has also developed a support pathway in partnership with Circles South East (a charity who work with convicted sex offenders). This pathway enables individuals to be referred to a bespoke intervention programme to address their behaviour.

This initiative developed following a local operation in response to an increase in serious sexual assaults in Oxford city. The proactive element proved successful in identifying several men who were actively targeting women in the NTE. This operation in Oxford city was subsequently adopted across all areas with a substantial NTE in Thames Valley.

Thames Valley Police has established a series of ‘minimum standards’ for the adoption of Project Vigilant.

An initial Oxford-based evaluation used a mixture of surveys, focus groups and observational studies.  

Thames Valley Police commissioned the University of Brighton to evaluate Project Vigilant in September 2021. Read the evaluation report: Thames Valley Police and Project Vigilant: Evaluation.

A current police-led evaluation is ongoing and being supported by the University of Cambridge. This evaluation is looking at the offender cohorts identified in this initiative and specifically the behaviours. The sample size is currently 470 men (two women have been observed as acting predatorily within this study).

The research will measure the behaviours of those who are already known to police for sexual offending (previous convictions, arrests for sexual offending) versus those who have not come to police attention for sexual offending. The research will also identify common behavioural characteristics and the trends in commonality. Finally, the research will seek to understand the effectiveness of the bespoke training given to officers on how to spot predatory behaviour. So far, analysis suggests that the NTE attracts both convicted sex offenders and those who have never come to police attention for sex offences previously.

The initial operation in Oxford city spanned a period of six weeks. During this time, 41 men were stopped as their behaviours towards women were deemed to be predatory. Of these 41 men, 19 had previous convictions for rape or serious sexual assault, and some had travelled considerable distance to commit offences.

This phenomenon of multiple offenders – all operating independently of each other – converging into a public space to target multiple women would not have been noticed if the proactive policing operation had not been mounted. The success in identifying this scale of offending received national recognition.

In the year 2022 to 2023, 220 men were stopped after they had demonstrated predatory behaviour. Of those 220 men who were stopped, 57% had previous links as a suspect relating to VAWG. 

The overall impact has been significant in developing an understanding of the depth and scale of this type of offending. The force has been gathering data since March 2019 and has since developed a VAWG dashboard, which allows them to analyse data quickly.

In the last 12 months a number of forces have since adopted the same crime prevention strategy. Colleagues across different forces recognise the need to seek additional opportunities to tackle VAWG as investigating it is notoriously tricky. By using a preventative measure it addresses all three VAWG pillars of:

• safer spaces – by spotting the early behavioural signs of predatory offending we can disrupt predatory activity
• improving trust and confidence – by tackling offenders proactively
• relentless pursuit of offenders – the risk and threat measures used by Project Vigilant are designed to continually assess the risk posed by perpetrators with structures in place to prevent them from offending

• The force have since professionalised (used an external company to revise) our training. 
• Identified opportunities to capture data more efficiently and in a better format. This was achieved by seeking support from tackling organised exploitation who were able to help us clean our data and present it in a Power BI format.

The University of Brighton made six recommendations for Project Vigilant. Thames Valley Police has implemented some of the recommendations and is working to build on the others.