Specially trained dogs in the UK criminal justice system

For over 20 years specially trained dogs have been used to help support witnesses throughout the criminal justice system in North America. Whilst anecdotal evidence has found these practices to be highly successful in comforting witnesses, to date, there has been no empirical research to support this evidence. Furthermore, this type of service has yet to be explored within a UK context. Recently however, researchers from Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) have been working to explore these benefits and provide the first global evaluation within the area.

The current article explores the benefits of using specially trained dogs in the criminal justice system, along with introducing readers to the current research agenda being carried out, and highlighting some of the preliminary results from the research. Overall, building this type of evidence base could further open up these practices to a number of countries, including the UK.