Chris Allen

Dr Chris Allen is a researcher, lecturer, consultant and commentator specialising in organised crime and how it operates. He has significant experience in lecturing on drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking and firearms trafficking, among other subjects.

He is currently Senior Police Practice Tutor at Buckinghamshire New University, where he has responsibility for the Evidence Based Research projects undertaken by officers and is leading a joint research project on the scope for a data harmonisation approach to international organised crime investigation with the Police Foundation. He is also Honorary Research Fellow at the Buckingham University Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies.

Concurrently, Chris is Director of Criminis Training and Consultancy services, which provides a range of solutions to law enforcement, universities and the private sector. As part of Criminis, he has been commissioned to write regular pieces on the latest organised crime trends for Policing Insight. In addition he is a specialist trainer for Police Science Dr Academy and an Associate of the London Policing College.

Chris is also the creator of the U BATTLE toolkit, an investigative strategy development tool that began under City of London Police in 2018 and since then has gained national and international recognition. U BATTLE uses the adapted versions of traditional business analysis techniques to improve the development of investigative strategies in order to dismantle organised crime groups.

Furthermore he is a member of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime Network of Experts, the Society for Evidence Based Policing, the European Political Research Consortium Standing Group on Organised Crime and the International Association for the Study of Organised Crime. He was awarded his PhD in Advanced Policing Studies from Liverpool John Moores University in March 2023.