The study will be conducted by Dr Jamie Kwan, Postdoctoral Researcher at the King’s Centre for Military Health Research alongside Professor Nicola Fear, Director of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research and Dr Deirdre MacManus, Reader at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London.

The goal of this project is to explore offending behaviour among UK military personnel prior to joining, during and after service, and it will be linking and combining three separate sets of data.  These data sets are the King’s Centre for Military Health Research’s cohort study, the Ministry of Justice’s Police National Computer (PNC) database of community offending records and the Ministry of Defence’s REDCAP database for in-service offending records.

Dr Kwan’s study will examine how offending behaviour changes as military personnel move through various stages in their career: from pre-service to during service, before and after deployment, and from service to post-service.  There will be a particular emphasis on whether military service impacts offending behaviour among personnel who have a history of pre-service offending compared to personnel who do not.

Ultimately, this project will aid the development of interventions to reduce offending among serving and ex-serving personnel.  This will likely need to be tailored to the British ex-Service community, as opposed to the general population or American ex-Service community.

Completion is expected in early-2022.

Ray Lock, Chief Executive at FiMT says: “By supporting this study, we hope to better understand possible connections between military service, and pre and post-service offending.  Ultimately, this will allow for more effective early interventions with at risk members of the ex-Service community, and their better transition into civilian life.  This study utilises a broad set of data, and we welcome its evidence-driven approach to improving the lives of a sub-sector of the ex-Service community.”

Dr Jamie Kwan, Postdoctoral Researcher at the King’s Centre for Military Health Research says: “We are thrilled to receive this award and are excited to work with FiMT to examine lifetime offending behaviour patterns among serving and ex-serving personnel.  While previous research has examined offending behaviour using the Ministry of Justice’s PNC database and Ministry of Defence’s REDCAP database separately, we are eager to combine the datasets to give a complete record of offending behaviour.”

Professor Nicola Fear, Director of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research says: “While it has been established that certain types of violent and offending behaviour are prevalent among military populations, little is known about lifetime offending in this population.  This project will aid the identification of personnel who are most at risk of offending during and post-service.  This research will help in the development of interventions to reduce offending within this population.”