Police Culture

Themes and Concepts

Tom Cockcroft

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415502573
• eBook ISBN: 9781136234057
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Police culture has for over half a century attracted interest from academics, students, policy-makers, police institutions and the general public. However, the literature of this area has proven to be diverse, sprawling and prone to contradiction which has led to an enthralling yet intricate body of knowledge that, whilst continuing to provoke interest and debate, has largely escaped any wider commentary.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the area of police culture primarily by situating it in the context of the literature of organisational culture. From this starting point, the idea of police culture is developed as an occupationally-situated response to the uniqueness of the police role and one in which our understanding is, at times, hindered by the challenges of definitional, operational and analytical concerns. The book then charts the development of our understanding of the concept, through traditional explanations to the contemporary, highlighting in turn the tensions that exist between the elements of continuity in the police world and those of change.

Police culture: themes and concepts draws on research from the 1950s to the 21st century from the UK, USA and elsewhere to show how the historical trajectory of police work from its early origins through to the late modern present have imbued it with a complexity that is undermined by deterministic explanations that seek to simplify the social world of the police officer. This book will be of interest to academics and students studying the sociology of policing as well as criminology.

Police culture Traditional approaches

DOI: 10.4324/9780203101155-3

Introduction

As has been described in the previous chapter, our knowledge of police culture has emerged through a number of stages following the initial surge of early research by pioneers such as Westley, Skolnick and Banton. As Westmarland (2008) points out, however, even the earlier depictions of police culture, which tended to highlight the existence of a single culture supported by a linear socialization process, have succeeded in raising, upon later reflection, a substantial number of unresolved issues. These points of continuing disagreement tend to revolve around issues of variation in both the police culture and individual orientations towards it. To writers like Peter Manning (2007), early period work in the area of police culture has provided us with a range of classic but obsolete studies that have been selectively drawn upon to present lifeless caricatures of the police world. However, it is still important to note that any contemporary assessment of police culture must explore the core elements of these early texts. Many authors highlight the tremendous contribution that these classic works have made to our understanding of policing with later accounts also acknowledging that this literature reflects a culture that, as time has passed, has diminished in relevance as a means of explaining contemporary police work (Loftus, 2010).

In this chapter I will draw out some of the key ‘products’ or manifestations of police culture, that is, the essentially negative issues that are associated with it. First, however, it is probably wise to address the issue of discretion in some depth, as it represents a seemingly constant thread within the sociology of policing. Not least, it signifies the element of freedom that allows some police values or opinions to become physically realized. Similarly, discretion has a deeply symbolic relevance, not just to sociologists studying police action, but to police officers themselves, who have traditionally valued discretion as an emblem of their professionalism. From the earliest pieces of research into police culture, discretion has emerged as an integral element of our understanding of police work. For example, Westley notes that:

the amount of violence which is used and the frequency with which it is employed will vary among policemen according to their individual propensities . . . the collective sanction for the use of violence permits those men who are inclined to its use to employ it without fear.

(1953, pp. 39–40)

Whilst cultural values regarding, for example, police violence may become more condemnatory, tolerant or nuanced over time and between communities, what remains important is the extent to which discretion allows for such cultural values to become appropriated as tolerated police practice.

Discretion

Klockars (1985) provides an illuminating introduction to the issue of police discretion (or selective enforcement, as he often refers to it) and begins by outlining the definition (adapted from Davis, 1969) that ‘A police officer or police agency may be said to exercise discretion whenever effective limits on his, her, or its power leave the officer or agency free to make choices among possible courses of action or inaction’ (Klockars, 1985, p. 93).

Three key elements of Davis’s definition are highlighted by Klockars. The first element is that discretion is something that is integral to the work both of patrol officers and of police administrators. This point is significant given that traditional conceptions of police culture have tended to highlight the importance of discretion at the lower end of the police ranks (not least through the work of Wilson, 1968, who famously remarked that discretion increases as one’s position in the police hierarchy decreases). Similarly, Brogden, Jefferson and Walklate (1988), amongst others, have been effective in stressing the importance of discretion at different levels of the police organization, from senior officers’ decisions to pursue or abandon particular policies to the decisions of patrol officers to deal with offences formally or informally. Whilst it should be noted that discretion is applied differently between patrol officers and managers (for example, with the former applying it at interpersonal as opposed to strategic levels), the wide disparity of status within the police hierarchy ensures that discretion has a different form and nature for different ranks, with a greater visibility accorded to those decisions taken at the more senior levels. The second element of Klockars’s definition is that, despite the potential for external influence, the power to make a particular decision rests with police officers and agencies. (This idea of external influence can be considered of some importance, especially in the light of discussions regarding the relationship between the police and local political elites described by Punch, 2009.) Klockars does note, however, an alternative definition by Reiss (1974) that proposes that ‘discretion’ pertains not only to an individual or agency holding the power to make a decision but also to the fact that that decision is not subject to review. The final factor highlighted by Klockars is the issue of action or inaction. In this respect, the application of discretion at street level is characterized by a decision either to act or not to act, and these differently framed discretionary decisions allow for a variety of types of scrutiny or oversight to be applied. As Klockars notes, the decision to arrest is usually accompanied by some form of inspection of the circumstances of that decision, whereas decisions not to arrest rarely meet with further consideration.

Skolnick’s (1994) Justice without Trial provides one of the first sociological appraisals of the importance of discretion to the police officer, drawing on the work of legal scholars in the area such as LaFave (1962b) who supported the application of legal controls to those discretionary decisions not to enforce the law. Central to Skolnick’s understanding of discretion was the balancing of the concepts of order and legality. The prioritization of either of these concepts, he observed, necessitates a reduction or expansion of the ‘decisional latitude’ (1994, p. 69) available to officers, and it is this elusive balance between the two that provides the basis of many of the debates regarding police discretion. Too much latitude arouses suspicions regarding unaccountable use of police power, whilst too little leads to accusations of overt bureaucracy and a dearth of ‘common-sense’ policing.

Skolnick (1994) goes on to identify two types of discretion exercised by the police, delegated discretion and unauthorized discretion. Delegated discretion referred to that discretion which was conceived as an inevitable part of the police officer’s job (and therefore viewed as authorized), whereas unauthorized discretion referred to that discretion which was influenced by the individual officer’s personal views. Unauthorized discretion was seen to arise from the fact that ‘policemen are rarely supervised, that supervisory (Sergeant to patrolmen) ratios are very high, and that training in most cases is minimal, “internal” control over police conduct is weak’ (Manning, 1977, p. 364). Within a UK context, discretion is conceived as fundamental to police work, and the work of Steer (1970) summarizes the accepted position that the police have a considerable amount of discretionary power invested within them and that, inevitably, not all breaches of the criminal law that are witnessed by the police will result in police action. The Association of Chief Police Officers, whilst claiming that officers might be able to use their discretionary powers ‘more wisely and more uniformly’ (Royal Commission on the Police, 1961, p. 16), appeared to be of the view that the public generally favoured the unbiased and often compassionate way in which such powers were exercised.

Police discretion, according to Jones (2008), has largely appeared incongruent with the public perception of police institutions as hierarchical and disciplined bureaucracies tasked with imposing the rule of law, and he identifies three issues that have led to discretion assuming such importance. First, the disparity between the resources available to the police and the limitless scope for the use of the criminal law leads to the police having to decide which laws are to be prioritized for enforcement and under which conditions. Second, the criminal law represents a set of tools to be used, not as a means of ensuring full enforcement, but as part of a range of options for dealing with particular situations. Officers require a substantial amount of discretion to match the most appropriate law for the position that they find themselves in. Discretion in this sense represents a degree of freedom in the face of the complex and fluid situations and environments that constitute the social world of policing. Officers may also use discretion to decide that, despite grounds for enforcing the law being present, it would be more appropriate for non-enforcement or alternative non-legal interventions to be used. Finally, many police interactions with the public focus on those who are marginalized, less visible and less likely to formally articulate grievances against the police, especially grievances that rest on perceptions of unfair application of discretionary powers.

The work of Klockars (1985) provides us with five further explanations of why discretion appears of such central importance to police work: the ‘over-reach of the law’; the ‘purpose of the law’; the ‘question of priorities’; the ‘problem of bad laws’; and the ‘power of citizen discretion’. Taking each of these in turn, ‘over-reach of the law’ suggests that laws are incredibly broad and cover situations and actions for which there are legitimate exemptions. Discretion is necessary to ensure that those people who break the law under circumstances that are exceptional and subject to exemption are not arrested. The ‘purpose of the law’ is to punish those individuals who ignore its authority, and discretion is required to ensure that those for whom punishment might be unwarranted do not suffer the inconvenience of police action. The ‘question of priorities’ arises when an officer witnesses a behaviour that is technically illegal but which has not been prioritized, for example by local policing arrangements or by that officer’s specific role. Discretion in such cases allows for officers to concentrate on particular crimes, whereas a policy of full enforcement would not. The ‘problem of bad laws’ refers to the fact that some laws fail to serve a coherent purpose, for example because they were introduced for political reasons or because, over time, they failed to remain relevant to the lives of those living under them. Klockars wisely acknowledges that the police will be unlikely to impose laws that are viewed as irrelevant and that such legislation will be left to ‘die a slow and quiet police discretionary death’ (1985, p. 101). The ‘power of citizen discretion’ acknowledges that police discretion, in a great many circumstances, relies on citizen discretion. Citizens use their discretion to choose whether or not to involve the police in a particular situation and, more importantly, may be the deciding influence on any further action that the officer takes. Klockars draws on the work of Black (1971) to present what appears to be an extraordinary finding, that arrests occurred in only 10 per cent of cases where the officer could legally make an arrest but in which the accuser did not want an arrest to be made.

Discretion is often a difficult concept to unthread, not least because of the fact that it concerns the application of abstract legal concepts to the vagaries of human life against a backdrop of resource and priority considerations. Neyroud and Beckley (2001) draw on the work of Kleinig (1996) to identify four different ways in which discretion can be exercised by police officers: ‘scope decisions’; ‘interpretive decisions’; ‘decisions about priority’; and ‘tactical decisions’. ‘Scope decisions’ reflect the ambiguities that are often associated with the breadth of the police role and whether or not the police are the most appropriate agency to deal with a particular matter. ‘Interpretive decisions’, in many respects, accord with the five points put forward by Klockars mentioned above in that they refer to those situations where an officer is required to decide whether or not formal application of the law is appropriate. In some cases, the officer might decide that, although the law has technically been broken, the most fitting resolution to the situation is based on negotiation rather than enforcement. ‘Decisions about priority’ reflect the impracticality of implementing full enforcement policies, so the police prioritize certain offences in line with national and local targets, and this has a strategic impact on the deployment and tasking of officers. ‘Tactical decisions’, again taken at a strategic level, reflect the difficulties in ensuring that an adequate balance is struck between the rights of individuals and those of the wider community.

From the above it is evident that discretion is a central thread running through all ranks of the police organization and that decisions made on the basis of scope or interpretation are more likely to be made by lower-ranking officers and those regarding priorities and tactics are more likely to be made by officers with more strategic roles. Differences in the characteristics of street-level and strategic discretion are, according to Neyroud and Beckley (2001), commonly to be found in respect of the context within which the decisions are made, the time that is available to make the decision, the intricacy of the situation and the number of interests to be represented. Strategic uses of discretion tend to take place in less tense environments and over longer intervals of time but with added difficulties associated with the consideration of a greater number of individuals and options.

Why is discretion important?

Issues of police discretion have a history of underpinning theories and observations concerning police occupational culture. Discretion, suggest Brogden, Jefferson and Walklate, provides the ‘space’ (1988, p. 35) within which the occupational culture takes hold, with occupational cultures requiring the lack of restriction that discretion allows to fully impact on officer decision-making. Grimshaw and Jefferson (1987) also show how the ‘discretionary framework’ (1987, p. 290) of police work is increased in particular circumstances, such as when insufficient guidance is given for officers to make informed decisions regarding potential actions. In these cases, officers tend to rely on ‘occupational common sense’ (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 291) to select the appropriate police response.

Police use of discretion also allows for an intricate understanding of the police institution and its practitioners. Primarily, and as Chatterton (1979) amongst others has observed, the discretion outlined by authors such as Klockars and Neyroud and Beckley provides a marked contrast to some of the more orthodox accounts of a police institution founded on discipline and hierarchy. For Chatterton, therefore, the importance of discretion to policing appears at odds with the presentation of the police institution as one of ‘military-bureaucratic discipline and control’ (1979, p. 83). Similarly, orthodox historical accounts of the police organization, according to Emsley (2005), depicted it in terms that underplayed the power of the lower ranks and highlighted the role of ‘disciplinarian’ police leaders in ensuring that officers were effectively controlled. The exploration of the role that discretion plays within the policing world does encourage a view of the police function that stresses an order maintenance as opposed to law enforcement agend...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Organizational and occupational cultures
• Occupational culture and policing
• Police culture Traditional approaches
• Police culture(s) Explaining variation
• Researching police culture
• Managing police culture
• Conclusion
• reference
• Index