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INTRODUCTION
Ella Cockbain and Johannes Knutsson
This book is dedicated to applied research into policing, its characteristics, challenges and opportunities. The focus is unashamedly practical: research that can inform and improve police1 policy and practice. To date, remarkably little has been written about the theory and practice of such applied police research. This addition to the Crime Science Series was designed to fill this gap, providing a valuable resource for those interested in police-academia collaborations. It contains a selection of reflective contributions from some of the worldās leading applied police researchers ā and from some fresh talent too. Our authors together have almost 300 years of police research experience2 working in countries such as America, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK. We expect the bookās key messages to have a broad international relevance. Nonetheless, conducting police research in emerging markets and/or autocratic systems may present additional challenges not discussed here.
Our authorsā contributions span a broad and novel spectrum of issues, including: initiating and maintaining effective collaborations; promoting knowledge-exchange between police and researchers; using theory to inform practice and vice versa; conducting policy-relevant research; managing ethical dilemmas; and conducting research inside and outside of police organisations. Although not a traditional methods book, this volume contains both practical everyday advice and calls for more fundamental programmes of change. The new light this book sheds on neglected areas of theory and practice will, we hope, stimulate reflection and debate at all levels and inspire and inform more and better police-academia collaborations. We expect the book to interest diverse parties who commission, conduct, evaluate, apply, teach and/or study police research. Its anticipated audience is broad, therefore, including: academics and police instructors; university students and police cadets; police officers and analysts; senior police management; and government policy-makers and research funders.
The primary focus of this book is research conducted with and/or for the police rather than on the police. This distinction is important, given the history of police research and lasting divides within the police research community. Police research in the social sciences is fairly new, dating largely back to the 1960s (e.g. Banton, 1964; Skolnick, 1966; Wilson, 1968). It emerged within a critical research tradition, which persisted through the 1970s and 1980s and remains influential today (Skogan and Frydl, 2004; Reiner, 2010). The development of the critical tradition is best understood in terms of contemporaneous events in Western Europe and America. Against a politically charged backdrop of industrial strikes, civil rights action and anti-war protests, police researchers often focused on questions such as police corruption, discrimination and other abuses of power (Skogan and Frydl, 2004; Reiner, 2010). Such research undoubtedly has a role in holding police accountable to laws and democratic principles. Yet, its ability actually to influence policing and its practical utility for crime-reduction are limited by its shortcomings. Critiques levied against such research include that it lacks a clear application for those involved in policing; is removed from the everyday realities of policing; fails to engage with police professionals; and/or alienates police from researchers through its apparently relentless focus on the negative aspects to policing (see Bradley and Nixon, 2009; Weisburd and Neyroud, 2011). The dominance of conventional criminology is important too, given its preference for root-cause explanations of crime (e.g. poverty or injustice as drivers of a supposed proclivity to offend). The implication is that policing research cannot stimulate crime reduction since the police are seen as essentially irrelevant in preventing crime.
A major break with the critical research tradition came with the development of an applied police research tradition from the 1970s onwards. The broad aim of applied police research is to develop theories, frameworks and/or empirical evidence to inform and support policing policy and practice. The impetus for this new research agendum did not come from traditional universities ā which had come to be regarded as an unlikely source of policy-relevant police research. Instead, developments were driven by new policing-related organisations and outside research groups, such as the Police Executive Research Forum and Police Foundation in the US, the Police Research Group at the UKās Home Office and the National Council for Crime Prevention in Sweden. This period also saw the beginning of a new experimental tradition in police research, marked by the publication of Kelling et al.ās (1974) seminal work The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment.
Among the most influential subsequent developments in the field were Goldsteinās (1979) problem-oriented policing in the US and Clarkeās (1980) situational crime prevention in the UK. The articulation and proliferation of such frameworks has important theoretical implications for the role of research in policing. For example, situationalists position offending ā like any human behaviour (Mischel, 1968) ā as the product of an interaction between an individual and their environment (e.g. Wortley, 2012). Crime environmentsā immediate physical ā and social ā characteristics are therefore seen as receptive to manipulations designed to deter would-be offenders (e.g. Cornish and Clarke, 2003; Homel and Clarke, 1997). Initially met with scepticism and disbelief, there is now a substantial body of empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of situational interventions in preventing crime ā and not simply displacing it (e.g. Bowers et al., 2011; Clarke, 1997; Guerette, 2009; Guerette and Bowers, 2009; Weisburd et al., 2006).
In problem-oriented policing, meanwhile, focused analysis is applied to define an issue, design and implement targeted interventions and measure their efficacy. In both approaches, evidence assumes a central role in influencing police strategy, resource-allocation and on-the-ground activity. Other policing models have followed that share this focus on using evidence to optimise police efficacy, such as the pulling levers model (Kennedy, 1996), intelligence-led policing (Ratcliffe, 2002) and evidence-based policing (Sherman, 1998).
The past decades have seen an increased impetus towards accountability, transparency and cost-effectiveness in policing (Bayley and Shearing, 1996; Weisburd and Neyroud, 2011). In many European countries in particular, there have been additional reforms aimed at professionalising the police, such as the transformation of police training academies into accredited institutes of higher education. With such changes comes an ever more obvious role for research in informing police policy and practice. Few applied researchers would disagree that the police as a whole could benefit from greater use of solid evidence and less reliance on heuristics, untested traditions and/or folk theory. Yet, tensions have arisen around exactly what researchers ā and other parties, such as the police or research funders ā perceive as valid evidence. On the one hand lies evidence-based policing and its associated āwhat works?ā agendum, in which the randomised control trial3 is the ultimate gold standard (e.g. Sherman, 2013; Sherman et al., 1997; Weisburd and Neyroud, 2011). While these terms sound appealing, the evidence-based policing movement has been heavily criticised for being unrealistic, reductive, prescriptive, scientifically flawed (in terms of generalisability) and detached from the realities of crime and policing (e.g. Bullock and Tilley, 2009; Sparrow, 2011; Tilley, 2006, 2009).
On the other hand are those researchers ā such as ourselves and our contributors ā who take a more pragmatic and inclusive stance on evidence, its generation, evaluation and application. From our perspective, rigorous experimental research certainly has a role ā but so too do other approaches (e.g. case study methods or action research) and the policeās own experiential knowledge. Research evidence is important, we argue, but it is not the only evidence that counts. Moreover, researchers seeking to improve policing must be sensitive to the parameters within which the police actually operate (Bradley and Nixon, 2009). At the heart of this more inclusive approach lies the conviction that crime and policing issues are complex and context-sensitive social problems that can, therefore, hardly be tackled through a universal treatment (e.g. Eck, 2002; Pawson and Tilley, 1997; Tilley, 2006).
This book is, in part, about breaking away from the persistent stereotype of academia imposing its truths from on high ā be it through critical police research or narrow conceptions of āwhat worksā. In this book, we embrace a broad and inclusive conception of scientific inquiry in which no explicit or implicit hierarchy of research design, methods or data reigns supreme. Academic integrity and high-quality work are wholly compatible with a flexible, imaginative and adaptive approach that is responsive to the policeās interests, needs and priorities (see also Laycock, 2004). A key benefit to this perspective is that researchersā role becomes one of active collaborators in finding practical, workable solutions, rather than distant critics or elite scientists imposing top-down prescriptions with little regard for varied temporal, spatial, organisational and social contingencies. The diverse research and case studies discussed in the forthcoming chapters span qualitative and quantitative methods, analyses of crimes and evaluations of interventions and short-, medium- and long-term studies. We do not argue for one ācorrectā approach but rather for sensitivity towards the needs and demands of a given project, whatever those may be.
Broadly speaking, the chapters cover three main themes. First, the book is framed at start and finish by chapters tackling the relationship between theory and practice in policing research (Chapters 2, 12 and 13). These chapters offer fresh perspectives on overarching issues and can help advance debate about the overall development of the field. Second, are Chapters 3ā7, which are based on lessons learned from policeāresearcher collaborations that were largely positive. These chapters are concerned primarily with identifying ways to support effective collaboration and to extend police research into new territory. Third, are Chapters 8 to 10 that draw on reflections about collaborations that were partially or largely problematic. These chapters provide a helpful counterbalance to the more positive experiences of the preceding ones. The authors reflect critically on difficulties they encountered and offer, where possible, advice to help others avoid their pitfalls.
What follows is a brief summary of each chapter in the book and its contribution to the volume.
In Chapter 2, David Kennedy demonstrates that policing remains more of a trade than a profession in the strict sense. The logical conclusion, he contends, is that the fetishisation of the so-called āmedical modelā of research is inappropriate for policing in its current state. He argues that researchers should acknowledge and adapt to policingās current realities and consider their role in helping advance its future professionalisation.
In Chapter 3, Ella Cockbain reflects on her recent experiences as a complete newcomer to police research. She offers advice to help others in her position navigate the potentially difficult terrain of building and maintaining relationships, accessing hard-to-reach data and so forth. Her recommendations centre on practicable interpersonal skills and approaches.
In Chapter 4, Rick Brown reiterates the importance of interpersonal skills in police research ā this time from the perspective of an experienced and established academic. He provides a detailed account of the importance of social acceptance in conducting police research. He illuminates barriers to social acceptance and ways by which they might be overcome, while maintaining integrity and credibility.
In Chapter 5, Gloria Laycock goes beyond police-academia collaborations to explore the three-way relationship between police, policy-makers and researchers. Drawing on...
