13 weeks worth of police and police work module from criminology with law. In depth notes including graphs and pictures, up to date and relevant knowledge to help you succeed in your studies
Learning outcomes
- Understand and appreciate the context and changing nature of police work
- Assess the role of the police and police work in the community
- Understand the global nature of police work
- Understand policing in terms of external influences
Police officer oath
“I do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the queen in the office
of constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights
and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace
to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I
continue to hold the said office I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties
thereof faithfully according to law.”
What is policing?
The police officer
A familiar figure in daily life and staple of fiction. They prevent crime, enforce the law, and detect
offences, they pick their way through evidence, pursue leads and possess a sixth sense for
unmasking criminals. (Waddington and Wright, 2010)
On TV
Watch a televised fictional portrayal of police and policing and note how the police are portrayed.
How far does it conform to this template?
1. A member of the public reports a crime to the police
2. Detectives examine the scene for ‘clues’, interview victims and witnesses and
3. A suspect is identified, confronted with incontrovertible evidence of his or her ‘guilt’ which
results in a confession and criminal charges.
(Maguire, 2008 cited by Waddington and Wright 2010)
Detectives can and do hunt down criminals, but this is enormously resource intensive and could not
be scaled up to deal with the generality of volume crime that is committed.
Researchers have found that, unless an eyewitness identifies the perpetrator of a crime very early
on in any investigation, the chances of conviction almost disappear entirely, and forensic evidence is
rarely instrumental in the detection of suspects.
(Waddington and Wright, 2010)
The crime that is missed
- Criminality found on the streets is low compared to that perpetrated by corporate
executives and other white-collar criminals
, - If the police were genuinely a crime fighting organisation their priorities would be quite
different
- Policing focuses on small time crime on the streets rather than the criminality of the suites,
or motoring offences, both of which are far more damaging
(Waddington and wright, 2010)
The real demand
- A substantial proportion of the public call upon the police for assistance during any one year,
but only a small minority do so to report crime
- There is a widespread agreement that crime comprises only a minority of the problems in
which the public ask the police to intervene
- The public turn to the police for help and assistance in dealing with an immensely broad and
indefinite array of calamities
(Waddington and Wright, 2010)
Police officers experience life as few others do and see the squalor that exists in modern capitalist
systems.
(Waddington and Wright, 2010)
Definition of routine policing
‘The role of the police officer is to ‘sort out’ situations by listening patiently to endless stories about
fancied slights, old grievances, new insults, mismatched expectations, infidelity, dishonesty and
abuse. They hear about all the petty, mundane, tedious, hapless, sordid details of individual lives.
Patient listening and gentle counselling are undoubtedly what patrol officers do most of the time’
(Bayley, 1994)
An opportunity to serve: A career that is…
- Varied – from one moment to the next
- Exciting – it is living on the edge, making fateful decisions, often in condition of poor
information
- Uncertain – the people and places in which police intervene are often volatile
- Challenging – the circumstances that police officers confront have no ‘standard operating
procedure’
- Demanding – a wide range of skills and knowledge is needed to adapt to the dynamic
situations
- Worthwhile – police officers have the opportunity to bring safety, security and, order into
the lives of the people who are often most in need of it
State authority and the police
- On the police helmet see what sits atop the police badge, a crown. The crown is the symbol
of the state, and the monarchy is the head of state. The prime minister is head of
government, bit government exists to serve the state
- The institutions of justice serve the crown. Police officers swear allegiance to the crown and
occupy the office of constable, the powers of which derive not from any political institution
but directly from the crown. Constables are accountable for the exercise of their powers
only to the courts
(Waddington and wright, 2010)
Force
- There is just one characteristic that all police everywhere in the world have in common: they
will, if pushed hard enough, kill their fellow citizens
, - They vary enormously in the extent to which they need to be pushed before they resort to
using lethal force; but all the same they share the capacity to use it. This is what it means to
use sovereign power
(Waddington and Wright, 2010)
- Officers are equipped with legal powers to compel compliance. The police are a ‘force’ and
they enforce the law. Police officers carry weapons that are prohibited to fellow citizens. The
police might ask politely for compliance but if that request is ignored, they resort legally to
the use of force. If necessary, officers can escalate this force to lethal levels.
- (Waddington and Wright)
(not assessed on this)
Public space
- What happens in public space is the business of the police
- Most people are not privy to the degradation in some people’s lives. few others experience
the squalor that accompanies the daily setting for most policing
- Most people don’t encounter those whose lives are so disorganised or depraved
- Police officers deal with episodes involving people and places into which no one else would
ever consider venturing
(Waddington and Wright, 2010)
Decent, humane, and kind
- to those who have been victimised, or who feel vulnerable and afraid, the police must be
considerate, caring, and protective
- To suspects, they must act with conspicuous fairness, however obnoxiously the suspect may
have behaved or continues to behave
- It means cultivating a professional persona in which detachment is combined with
compassion
Good policing
Trust legitimacy and authority (Hough, 2011)
Crime fighting
- In the US, policing is seen largely as ‘crime fighting’, with police officers trained and
deployed to use force to compel compliance
- This approach leaves little room for concerns about popular legitimacy in discussions of
policing
, - In the US, there is a pattern of police misconduct regarding the use of force, followed by
protests, riots, destruction and more death
- On becoming home secretary in 2010, Theresa May told the police that ‘your job is nothing
more, and nothing less, that to cut crime’
(May 2010, quoted by Hough, 2011)
- Ten years late, home secretary Priti Patel told police leaders: ‘less crime. Safer streets. No
excuses. The public won’t accept excuses, and neither should we’
(Patel, 2020, quoted by Hough, 2021)
- In 2019, Boris Johnson, wrote an article in the mail on Sunday promising 10,000 more prison
places, greater police stop and search powers and longer prison sentences: ‘we need to
come down hard on criminals… I want the criminals to be afraid – not the public
(Johnson, 2019)
Procedural justice
The central insight behind procedural justice is that people do not evaluate legal or political
authorities primarily in terms of the outcomes they receive from them. Rather, people evaluate
these authorities as being legitimate if they judge them as exercising their authority fairly.
(Tyler, 2021, in Hough, 2021)
What does ‘fairly’ mean?
- Whether they were given a chance to state their case
- Whether they were given explanations for decisions
- Whether those decisions were neutral, and fact based
- Whether respect was shown for their rights as citizens and for them as people
(Tyler, 2021, in Hough, 2021)
Building trust
- Trust that the police will be fair and respectful in their treatment of the police
- Trust that they will not discriminate in favour or against different groups
- Trust that their decision making arrives at fair outcomes
- Trust that they achieve an acceptable level of competence
- The more that ‘hard’ policing tactics are deployed, the less room the police leave themselves
for policing by consent
What is required?
- Policing requires a sympathetic appreciation of human frailty
- A good police officer is skilled at handling authority
- A good police officer is someone who treats those with whom they have contact fairly and
respectfully, accords them dignity, and listens to what they have to say
Both the traditional front line occupational culture and the old-style authoritarian culture of senior
managers are clearly incompatible with styles of policing that accord dignity and respect to others,
allow people a voice, and explain the reasons for decisions
(Hough, 2021)
Cressida Dick – British police officer, commissioner of police of the MET
Professionalisation
- Recently, the police in England and wales have moved rapidly towards professionalisation:
- The establishment of a national ‘warehouse’ of research evidence
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