David Cowan, who has been a member of Victoria Police since 1990 and is a Superintendent in charge of the Organised Crime Division, will be inducted into the Evidence-Based Policing (EBP) Hall of Fame in Washington in late June 2024.
In 2020, David was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate the development of evidence-based policing across police agencies worldwide. He travelled to Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom and USA to identify innovative responses to policing challenges and test new approaches to generate evidence and new knowledge in policing so a culture can be built that equips teams with the skills and motivations to lead important evidence-based work.
“Implementing EBP within an agency is not an academic exercise,” said Detective Superintendent Cowan. “It is a broad and inclusive approach to develop greater insights from data, understand what works and what is promising, with a clear and constant focus on supporting police and improving community safety.”
Dr Rachael Coghlan, CEO of the Winston Churchill congratulated David on his Fellowship and being inducted into the Evidence-Based Policing Hall of Fame. “David is deeply engaged with running evidence-based policing master classes to advance police training in Victoria,” said Dr Coghlan. “His efforts have led to international collaborations between the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and he has led the implementation of the Global Evidence-Based Policing Conference involving over 6,500 police and academics with thirty jurisdictions participating.”
Some of David’s recommendations are for police agencies to consider establishing internal structures and specialist roles to support evidence-based policing and crime science and data insight capabilities as well as for police agencies to build more effective partnerships with academia and specialist institutions to drive evidence-based work. Find out more about David’s recommendations in his Churchill Fellowship project report here.