Cop Cultures, Race and Zero Tolerance Flashcards
What shapes policing? Policing and the law
Received view of policing for much of the 19th and 20th centuries: a hierarchical, disciplined force that are there to enforce the law impartially
Increasing sociological interest in what shapes policing ‘on the ground’
The ‘law in books’ v ‘the law in action’
Wide discretion of front line police officers (eg. cannot enforce all laws with finite resources, choices between which laws to enforce and how, laws often framed vaguely and open to interpretation)
Law is only one factor amongst a range of social, economic and political processes that shape policing practice
Early ‘sociological’ police researchers moved away from ‘rational-legal’ perspective in explaining police conduct/misconduct with a focus on the role of the role of occupational cultures in shaping behaviour
What is police occupational culture?
The way that police officers view the social world and their place in it (Reiner 2010)
A set of beliefs, values, working practices and informal rules that are shared between working groups of police officers
‘Canteen Culture’ (values and beliefs expressed in off-duty socialising) v ‘Cop culture’ (norms and working rules expressed and implied in the course of doing police work) (Waddington 1999)
A distinctive list set of commonalities of police outlook/similar patterns of understandings that have been observed in police forces in many parts of the world
NB. Not simply police ‘attitudes’ or ‘individual personality traits’ (and not simply negative)
Researching ‘cop culture’
- Ethnographic studies
‘Classic’ studies (Skolnick 1966, Justice without Trial)
‘Participant observation’ by ‘insiders’ (eg, Holdaway, Inside the British police (1983))
Non-participant observation by non-police researchers (e.g. PSI, Police and People in London (1983); Loftus, Police Culture in a Changing World (2009) - Interview-based studies
The police in their own words, e.g. Roger Graef, Talking Blues (1990) - Quantitative surveys
Policy Studies Institute (PSI) 1983
Key characteristics of ‘cop culture’
> Sense of Mission
- ‘Not just a job but a way of life’, action-orientation and crime-fighting
> Suspicion
- Suspicion of ‘difference’, particular groups or places,
> Isolation & Solidarity
- ‘Us versus them’ mentality
> Cynicism & Pessimism
- Bleak view of human nature
> Machismo & Prejudice
- Sexism, racism and homophobia
> Conservatism
- Law and order, preserving the status quo
How is cop culture created and sustained?
REFLECTIVE THE ‘CULTURES’ OF THOSE DRAWN TO POLICE WORK?
Most studies suggest that police recruits’ beliefs/attitudes largely reflect those of wider population
NATURE OF THE WORK
Discretion/low visibility
Unique coercive authority
INTERACTIONS WITH PEOPLE
Risk/unpredictable outcomes
Hostile encounters with particular groups
SOCIALIZATION
‘Learning on the job’
How are specific aspects of cop culture shaped by the police function? NB. Explaining NOT justifying
Mission – ‘war stories’ to give an acceptable gloss to what is often a messy, difficult, depressing and mundane job
Isolation - coercive powers, unsocial hours, public hostility
In-group loyalty - risk/danger, need to rely on back up
Suspicion – emerges from crime control and order maintenance function
Pessimism – dealing with the raw end of society’s problems
Machismo - traditional emphasis on stereotyped ‘male’ attributes of toughness, strength, violence
Prejudice – collective experience of hostile relations with particular segments of society
‘Sick’ or shocking humour – ‘venting’, coping mechanism to deal with everyday difficulties (see also nurses, fire-fighters, paramedics etc)
Problematizing ‘Cop Culture’(e.g. see Waddington 2012)
Not clear what ‘it’ is, and how far (and in what ways) it shapes actual police behaviour
Cop culture not necessarily ‘distinctive’
Variations in cop cultures – by rank, by specialism, by force – the idea of a universal and homogenous culture is unhelpful
Overly deterministic impression – individual officers can resist/rework occupational norms
‘Saying’ versus ‘doing’ (Waddington 1999, PSI 1983)
Individual dispositions v. collective and complex cultural phemonenon
Cultural shifts in wider society since ‘classic’ studies of the 1970s/80s (though see Loftus 2009 for enduring features)
How can we change cop culture(s)?
- Recruitment
Targeted campaigns, recruitment targets, improved selection procedures, direct entry
Problems – the reduction of complex cultural traits to ‘problematic individuals’ - Training
Increased entry standards, formal training to address problematic attitudes, ‘ethical’ emphasis on training and development
See above, better training clearly a good thing but on its own cannot address fundamental structural shapers of cultural traits
How can we change cop culture(s) or reduce the potential for negative impacts?
- Individual and organisational accountability
Rendering frontline policing ‘more visible’ via technology, more/better supervision
More rigorous and consistently enforced disciplinary codes
‘Rule tightening’ to restrict discretion (eg. Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984)
External accountability (Elected Police and Crime Commissioners) - ‘Meso level’ (wider policing policy approaches)
Changing the pattern of policing policies
Community-based or ‘problem-solving’ approaches - Wider factors: The context of policing
Tackling the broader patterns of inequality: social and economic policies outside of the field of policing
‘Broken Windows’ (Wilson and Kelling, 1982)
- The effectiveness of foot patrol
1960s/70s research suggested no impact on crime rates
Police resources put into emergency response/car patrol - Links between disorder and crime
Erosion of informal community controls
Law abiding people avoid public spaces
Graduation from incivilities to serious crime - Spirals of decline
Communities reach ‘tipping points’ after which disorder and crime spiral out of control and feed off each other - Community controls and order-maintenance policing
‘Broken Windows’ policing, ‘order maintenance’ policing, ‘quality of life’ policing
Police should act to ‘reclaim’ the streets
Clamp down on incivilities/disorder
Trigger ‘virtuous circle’ of reduced disorder, more informal social control (via citizen confidence, greater use of public space) and eventually reducing serious crime rates
Concerns about ‘Broken Windows’
- Empirical evidence for disorder-crime relationship
No clear causal connection demonstrated (Harcourt 1999)
“Disorder” and “crime” both related to more fundamental conditions in deprived neighbourhoods - Conceptual concerns
Simplistic dichotomies – “Respectable/problematic” populations; “orderly/disorderly” behaviour
Disorder/incivility as a political/social construction
ZERO TOLERANCE IN NEW YORK CITY
- Rudy Giuliani and Bill Bratton
- Policing NYC-style
Charismatic leadership Media management ‘Quality of Life’ Policing Devolved accountability and COMPSTAT Expansion of police numbers (36K-47K 1990-1995)
IMPACT? ‘Crime is down in New York City: Blame the police!’ (Bill Bratton)
- Changing crime rates
homicide 2,262 (1990) to 767 (1997) (-66%)
murder rate 26.5/100,000 population (1993), 4/100,000 (2014)
car theft (-70%)
burglary & robbery (-61%)
rape (-35%)
- Explanations
General crime drop across US cities from early 1990s economic trends demographic shifts imprisonment drugs markets (decline in crack) policing
Zero Tolerance in Britain
Limited applications in policing policy (localised experiments in a small number of forces during 1990s focusing on minor crimes and incivilities)
‘Broken Windows’ ideas have been influential in the broader political arena, particular in relation to political rhetoric within law and order debates
Symbolic use of ZT terminology – particularly associated with Tony Blair and ‘New Labour’ but used extensively by Conservative also politicians in recent times
Changes in substantive policy also but broader than the field of policing
The birth of ‘anti social behaviour’ and ‘disorder’ The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 Anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) The Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 The ‘Respect’ Agenda
The ongoing debate about Zero Tolerance
- United Kingdom
August 2011 Riots
Cameron – “We haven’t talked the language of zero tolerance enough”
Bill Bratton mooted as next Commissioner of Metropolitan Police
Appointed as PM’s ‘advisor’ on gangs - USA
Academic debate continues (Harcourt versus Kelling)
Bratton re-appointed as New York City Police Commissioner in 2013
Killings by police in US cities from 2012 on re-ignite debate (eg. Mike Brown, Eric Garner #blacklives matter movement)
Summer 2020 – police killing of George Floyd sparks mass protests across USA and across the globe
