Project Servator police deployments were originally introduced by the City of London Police in February 2014 as "New policing tactics to deter and detect criminal and terrorist activity, as well as to reassure the general public. " Project Servator has since been adopted by British Transport Police, Police Scotland, Essex Police, Ministry of Defence Police the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police. The police have used Project Servator tactics in London, on the national rail network and at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, V Festival and shopping centres.
Project Servator is an inclusive collaborative community strategy that relies on local people and businesses to be the eyes and ears for the police. It encourages residents and staff to be vigilant and to be the eyes and ears for the police and to ensure safety and security. The police have used information campaigns to support these deployments. These exercises are based on highly visible police patrols designed to identify and deter potential criminal activity, ranging from pickpocketing or theft to more serious crimes, including terrorism. Project Servator deployments are characterized by the use a range of policing assets - dogs, mounted branch, firearms, plain clothes – in an unpredictable way. Research indicates that visible policing makes the public feel more reassured and Project Servator arrest figures show it has been effective in identifying criminals.
Overview In February 2014, in response to the public perception of increased levels of crime and the threat of international terrorism the City of London Police launched a new public policing initiative called 'Servator' or 'Project Servator.''Project Servator' is an inclusive collaborative community strategy that aims to protect local areas and build upon the safety and security plans already in place to ensure safety and security. It is based on a partnership approach, where the police engage local communities and businesses, encouraging vigilance among residents and staff working in that area. Police seek to work closely with as many parts of the community as possible and briefings often include; local pubs and retailers, bus, rail or taxi firms and their drivers and homeless hostels.
Project Servator's approach is the highly visible and unpredictable deployments of police assets. These may be the deployment of specially trained officers – uniformed and plain-clothes, dogs, horses coupled with the heightened use of CCTV. It involves increasing existing levels of community engagement, to encourage people to be vigilant and to report anything suspicious. It has included media engagement, poster advertisements in transport hubs or in roadside and telephone boxes, as well as leaflets placed in shops and cafes. In each case, the police force concerned, provides the public with telephone numbers to call if they see anything suspicious.
As the public feel more reassured by a visible policing on the streets, the aim of Servator is to make the police footprint very visible and very obvious. The police do so by a deployment of policing assets that are unpredictable in time, location and in asset used. One day dogs and handlers may be patrolling, the next the mounted branch may be visible, the next there may be a batch of six or seven officers patrolling an area, another day, there will be no one. There could be officers patrolling with private security teams, there could be officers working alongside CCTV teams with officers on the ground in the area being surveyed.
Project Servator may involve using undercover officers trained in behavioural analysis to spot people who might be scoping out sites for a potential terrorist attack. Officers' expertise is in noticing the subtle, sometimes unconscious ways in which people behave differently when they are stressed or anxious.
Background
The planning, research and development behind Project Servator comes from three years of work with the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA), as part of its role to reduce the vulnerability of the national infrastructure to terrorism and other threats and to help protect public places; and with the City of London Police, who developed an initial Servator pilot scheme.
Cranfield University helped provide the research to evaluate the impact of Servator as part of its role to reduce the vulnerability of the national infrastructure to terrorism and other threats and to help protect public places. The most significant threat comes from international terrorism with its ambitions to mount high impact attacks combining mass casualties with substantial disruption to vital services such as energy, transport and communications. Cranfield University's Professor Paul Baines said: "In psychology, reciprocity is a powerful mechanism. Most of us can relate to the idea that if we receive something from someone, we feel almost a need to 'return the favour', and are likely to do so." Heightened public awareness of a potential threat is perceived as a 'favour' as it is protecting the public from danger. So the "UK police forces…use the notion of a favour/fear appeal to offer benefit to citizens and thereby encourage them to report suspicious activity." Project Servator's growing prominence in the public mind seeks to enable police to better "tactically engage with the public, 'by recruiting' them, and by encouraging them to be vigilant and more eager to report suspicious behaviour." Professor Baines has spoken about the importance of "reassurance communications" by the police as an important aspect of encouraging the public to report suspicious activity.
Cranfield University recently provided an assessment of Project Servator and concludes that police reassurance communications (RComms), branded as Servator, inform, reassure and recruit the general public (and potentially deter criminals/terrorists). The communications are designed as a social marketing campaign that uses a partnership approach with the local community. []
Impact The City of London Police attribute the success of Servator to a more scientific approach to behaviour detection. Officers are trained to notice the subtle, sometimes unconscious ways in which people behave differently when they are stressed or anxious and do so in the course of conducting hostile reconnaissance.
People displaying signs of nervousness are approached, or stopped, and questioned and if the officers become even more suspicious, they can then use their 'stop and search' powers. The "conversion rate", or the proportion of people searched who then go on to be arrested when this technique is used, jumped from 20 to 68 per cent during the two years it was used by City of London Police.
Between February 2014 and June 2016, City of London Police officers on Servator deployments carried out a total of 738 searches. Of these, 442 searches proved positive, resulting in 403 arrests and 171 vehicle seizures, with drug offences being the most common.
Use of tactics within London Since the launch of Project Servator in February 2014, the City of London Police have been deploying the tactic across the Square Mile, as the City of London is known.
Project Servator was launched on the streets of London in November 2016 by the Metropolitan Police as a way of deterring anyone planning to commit any form of crime from shoplifting to terrorist attack planning. This deterrence is in the form of unpredictable, irregular deployment of plainclothes officers, the use of dogs, boat units and other forms of territorial police support. Scotland Yard stressed the move was not in response to a specific threat, however, in 2017, following a bomb on the District Line train at Parsons Green, there had been a government promise to enhance police presence in areas across London.
An additional objective of these deployments by trained officers is the desire to encourage people to become extra eyes and ears for the police. The police want to persuade them to readily report any suspicious behaviour that they may see. One such example came in August 2017, when the Met Police Task Force, working with British Transport Police, made a major swoop at Stratford station and seized a long bread knife, a hammer and an imitation gun. The photographs of the weapons taken off those detained were shared on social media and the story was covered by both the national press and on Twitter. Publicity of the arrests and the sharing of the weapon images on social media was expected to reinforce public confidence and increase the likelihood of people calling in intelligence on suspicious behaviour which Project Servator teams can then act upon.
Project Servator has also played an important role in building public trust and support during 2016 and 2017 as several terrorist attacks hit London. In late 2016, officers were patrolling London boroughs looking for signs of suspicious activity as part of Project Servator deployments and police in London were doing so again as part of Operation Temperer, which began shortly after the Manchester Arena terrorist attack in May 2017. Additionally, Project Servator means a greater police presence is in place at transport hubs in east London with London City Airport seeing Project Servator deployments in and around the airport.
In March 2016 it was announced that an extra £1.6 million a year would be raised by City firms for anti-terror measures to protect the capital's financial centre. The funds were to support more armed police, collaboration with businesses, community groups and other organisations on protective security and the further development of Project Servator.
Use of tactics outside London Since the international terrorism threat level was raised to severe in 2014, Project Servator tactics have been used on several occasions: the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, V Festival, Intu Lakeside and One New Change also at transport hubs nationally, and around critical national infrastructure as well as around military sites such as Sellafield Aldermaston and HMNB Portsmouth, Naval Base by the Ministry of Defence Police
Terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 and Brussels in 2016, have led to forces in other urban areas, such as the Metropolitan Police Service and Greater Manchester Police, to examine the potential of Servator as a police scheme to heighten public awareness and strengthen public security. On 7 November 2016, Project Servator launched at London Stansted Airport with Essex Police aiming to set up highly visible, yet unpredictable, police deployments designed to disrupt and deter criminal activity in and around the airport. Servator was planned to be used to improve security at some of Britain's biggest train stations and high-profile buildings.
Surveillance
The police have used information campaigns to support the deployments. An example of Professor Paul Baines’ psychological approach of reassurance communications, is one of the poster headlines that reads "We love rush hour, it gives us 300,000 extra pairs of eyes". Discussing this poster, the magazine of the creative industry, the Drum writes "It employs public information and deterrence communications techniques. The core emotive colours of red, white and black provoke an emotional response and distinguish the posters – even in busy environments. And the strapline 'Together, we've got it covered' makes the overall message inclusive while also sending a warning to criminals or malicious individuals."
The Mayor of London echoed the same "eyes and ears" message. Sadiq Khan said "Nothing is more important to me than keeping Londoners safe. As a father of two daughters, I worry about my family going about our city just as I worry about all Londoners." This was said as part of his press statement when he attended a Servator deployment at Liverpool Street linked to his terror preparedness review.