Policing Scotland

Daniel Donnelly, Kenneth Scott, Daniel Donnelly, Kenneth Scott

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781843929383
• eBook ISBN: 9781136308161
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This fully updated and expanded second edition of Policing Scotland takes account of recent developments in Scottish policing and criminal justice against the backdrop of a dynamic political landscape and looming fiscal constraints in public services. The book offers contributions from both academics and practitioners, and not only shows police at work in contemporary Scotland, but also gives some insight into those areas where policing is carried out by non-police people and organisations.It seeks to identify what it is about Scottish policing that is distinctly Scottish, the main characteristics of modern policing in Scotland, how these have developed over the recent past, and what they have become today. In answering these questions, the book analyses policing in Scotland in the context of the new and emerging ideas about the nature, purposes and methods of policing that are developing elsewhere in the world, and seeks to determine how far Scottish policing is maintaining its own traditions, or simply becoming a localised example of wider global trends.The second edition of this popular text introduces new chapters on crime investigation, police unionism, ethnic minorities, policing violence and forensic science, as well as incorporating a major new theme which seeks to explain how those responsible for policing Scotland set about dealing with current issues such as terrorism and organised crime. This book makes a significant contribution to the current debate on policing in Scotland, and as such is an essential text for academics and those interested in policing issues.

Chapter 1

Introduction: Policing Scotland

Daniel Donnelly and Kenneth Scott

Ask any Scottish police officer whether or not policing in Scotland is different from that in England and Wales and there is likely to be an almost intuitive, affirmative answer. Ask about the precise nature of these differences and how they have come about and the answer is likely to be less clear and, indeed, may be quite vague. Once the fact that Scotland has its own laws and legal system has been identified, it becomes more difficult to articulate specifically what it is about policing north of Hadrian’s Wall that makes it peculiarly Scottish.

This was the main issue which the previous edition of this book sought to explore. Is policing in Scotland in any way different from that which pertains in the rest of the United Kingdom or not? If it is different, in what ways is it so and are the differences fundamental or are they merely an adaptation of a British model of policing to a specific locality? What are the main characteristics of modern policing in Scotland and how have these developed over the recent past to what they have become today? Is the Scottish police likely to generate its own models of policing for the future or will it simply copy what is done elsewhere? These questions remain central to any discussion of policing in Scotland, even although some headway in answering them has been made since 2005.

The essential aims of this edition remain threefold. The first aim is to consolidate what is known about policing in Scotland through the policing literature of recent years and to continue to fill the gaps that still exist. The second aim is to describe how Scottish policing works, not only for an academic audience with a comparative interest in such matters, but for the general public in Scotland who pay for and interact with this important public service. The third aim is to provide some analysis of policing in modern Scotland in the context of the continuing exploration of ideas about the nature, purposes and methods of policing that have developed throughout the world and to determine how far Scottish policing is maintaining its own traditions and characteristics and to what extent it is a localised example of global trends.

The study of Scottish policing

The study of policing continues to be a growth area of academic activity throughout the world. Policing studies have emerged from a combination of academic disciplines which relates to the activities, individuals and organisations concerned with law enforcement, the investigation and prevention of crime, public order, the safety of communities and the processes of criminal justice within society. Academic research into policing in Britain is usually dated from the pioneering sociological study by Michael Banton (1964) entitled The Policeman in the Community. Since then the study of the police has become an established field in its own right and with its own issues and agendas. Such studies have now expanded significantly beyond the police organisation itself into the wider processes of policing, involving other agencies, public authorities and private security, especially at the most local levels (Donnelly 2008). As well as the growing number of academic books, the range of specialist journals has continued to expand and there has been a significant increase in research into policing from both academic and public policy sources.

The study of policing and policing research in Scotland has changed considerably since the previous edition of this volume. Many regular sources of information still tend to be of an official or semi-official nature. Some of these originate with police organisations themselves, such as the statutory annual reports required of each chief constable and of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland. Others are studies commissioned by the Scottish government, for example through its Judicial Analytical Services unit (www.scotland.gov.uk/ Topics/Research/by-topic/crime-and-justice), and the Inspectorate of Constabulary has supported its inspection reports with some research activity (www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/publicsafety/Police/local/15403). The websites of the eight police forces in Scotland and of central service organisations can also be very useful sources of data across a wide range of both local and national aspects of Scottish policing (see www.scottish.police.uk). However, because this kind of information emanates from government sources and requires co-operation from chief constables, there is a tendency for it to express officially sanctioned views of the Scottish police tradition rather than providing any wider critical perspective.

Although in the past Scottish universities paid relatively little attention to the police compared with other parts of the criminal justice system, this has now changed considerably. The Centre for Police Studies at the University of Strathclyde, with its work in the 1970s and 1980s on police management issues (see Bradley et al. 1986), was an important early contributor to this. The founder of the Centre, the late Professor Roy Wilkie, was also instrumental in developing management ideas within the Scottish police service, especially through his contributions to the command courses for senior officers at the Scottish Police College over many years. He also promoted scholarship within the service itself by persuading a number of senior police officers to undertake postgraduate research degrees. One of these, who was a chief constable twice in Scotland, went on to publish his thesis as a textbook on police accountability (Oliver 1997). Even although it is concerned largely with Britain as a whole, the book contains a number of interesting and insightful references to the Scottish situation. The writings of another member of the original Strathclyde University group, Professor Neil Walker (now of the University of Edinburgh), have given due weight to policing in Scotland in terms of police culture (Walker 1994), general policing developments (Walker 1999) and the constitutional framework (Walker 2000). Walker’s later work on policing has moved outwith the Scottish context to focus on transnational policing and police co-operation in Europe (for example, see Walker 2008).

The growth in academic studies of policing in the United Kingdom in the 1990s contained relatively little description and even less analysis of Scottish policing. Most of the major works in the field dealt with ‘British’ policing as a single entity and even the delineation of the police in Scotland was variable. Some works, such as Benyon et al.’s (1995) review of police forces in Europe, clearly did recognise Scotland as a country apart in policing terms. Many careful studies of policing in Britain explained that their focus was really on England, or at most England and Wales; for example, Reiner’s (2000) classic study of the politics of policing. In other cases, the line that was followed was not to define the police jurisdictions being discussed at all, and then to write about England without reference to other parts of the UK. In Leishman et al.’s (2000) review of core policing issues, Scotland receives little mention. However, the prescient point is usefully made in the introduction, with regard to the creation of new parliaments and assemblies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, that ‘the implications of these developments for British policing are many and complex, not least the question of whether we can continue to use the term British policing in the same way ever again’ (ibid.: 5).

Against this background of relative neglect it is ironic that the pioneering work of Banton (1964) was written when he was a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and his book contains a detailed description of two days of typical shift work by police officers in an unnamed Scottish city, which was certainly Edinburgh. Banton used this research to make comparisons with patrol work in three police forces in the United States. A contemporary critic of Banton’s work pointed out that it could not be fully regarded as a comparative study of British and American police because it was based on a Scottish force (Skolnick 1966).

The creation of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) in 2006 has changed the face of police research in Scotland (see www.sipr.ac.uk). Backed by a strategic research development grant from the Scottish Funding Council, which finances Scotland’s higher and further education institutions, and with co-funding from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), SIPR has proved to be an effective bridge between all the Scottish universities and the Scottish police service. Through its three research networks concerned with police–community relations, evidence and investigation, and police organisation, the Institute has expanded Scotland’s research capacity in police studies, initiated a number of major research projects, and developed important links with police research bodies in other parts of the UK and internationally. SIPR has also played an important role in making the results of research available to police practitioners through its seminars and publications, and hopefully through that into Scottish policing policy and practice.

In one of the few textbooks on the Scottish criminal justice system as a whole, Walker (1999) argued that:

The policing of Scotland, like the policing of any territory with its own political and cultural identity, consists of a distinctive but broadly familiar set of social practices informed by a distinctive but broadly familiar pattern of historical development.

(ibid.: 94)

One of the purposes of this book is to continue the quest to differentiate the ‘distinctive’ of Scottish policing from the ‘broadly familiar’ of policing in Scotland as a whole, and to seek to map the contours of the policing of Scotland in these terms. Some areas of difference in Scottish policing have always been easily identifiable: the separate system of criminal law and procedure, for example. Some new areas are beginning to emerge; for instance, the roles of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish governments¹ in initiating their own devolved agendas, legislation and policies in relation to policing. However, many others are relatively unexplored, such as how the police in Scotland investigate crime, the changing nature of police accountability, evaluations of operational policing, or the nature of the relationship between the police in Scotland and the people of Scotland. This edition of Policing Scotland is part of a continuing attempt to describe and analyse these and many other topics that constitute the core of police work, activity and organisation in the northern part of the United Kingdom.

The Scottish public and the police

Without doubt what policing in Scotland does share with the rest of the United Kingdom is an adherence to the guiding principle of ‘policing by consent’. This principle implies that policing is carried out on behalf of, and with the support of, the public. It finds embodiment in the idea that police men and women are not high-powered officers of the state or a military force, but are ordinary citizens armed with only a limited range of additional powers and subject to exactly the same rule of law as the rest of society. As a consequence the received wisdom is that police work can only be effective where it functions with the consent and co-operation of the general public.

In Scotland good relationships between the police and the public are still accepted on both sides as crucial to the policing of the country. By and large, the Scottish public is highly supportive of the police, as the outcomes of the Scottish Crime Surveys (SCS) have shown over the years. The findings of the 2009 Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS), for instance, reported that 61 per cent of the sample said that the police in their local area did a good job, and 66 per cent of those who had contacted the police were satisfied with the way in which the matter had been dealt with (MacLeod et al. 2009: 7.1). It is also true that Scottish police forces work hard to maintain the support of the public, partly through extensive involvement by police officers at all levels in a range of community meetings and activities and partly through the development of media and information services aimed at keeping the public aware of what the police are doing. In recent years forces have responded to the insatiable demand of the Scottish public for increased numbers of officers on patrol in local communities, as part of a ‘reassurance’ strategy (ACPOS 2008b). According to the Crime and Justice Survey, the single most significant factor in public support for the police is increased visibility (ibid.).

However, the picture is not universally rosy. Victims are less likely to say the police in their area do a good job – 51 per cent of victims compared with 63 per cent of non-victims in the latest SCJS (ibid.) In recent crime surveys in Scotland a stubborn minority of around 25 per cent continues to be dissatisfied with the police. These figures show that, while police–public relations continue to be crucial and generally positive, the relationship between the police and the Scottish public cannot be taken for granted and is as capable of change as in any other aspect of public service.

Equally, there is still a great deal about policing of which the public is unaware. In 1990, at a time of considerable debate about police reform, the three police staff associations, representing chief constables, superintendents a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Table of statutes
• List of abbreviations
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Policing Scotland
• Part 1 Overview
• Part 2 Key areas of policing Scotland
• Part 3 Scottish policing contexts
• Part 4 Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index