When considering the future of policing one thing is certain. Policing does not exist in a vacuum. It is impacted upon daily and, in the long term, by changes in the social, political, economic, technological, environmental and legal structures, in whatever country it is practised. It therefore follows that the future structure and activities of policing will be shaped by the future changes within these and other activities.
In particular, policing is a âpeople and informationâ occupation. Therefore, those who are responsible for police education in all countries need to clearly understand how populations alter, responding to strong currents within their society. Further, there is a need to understand how information is gathered, exchanged and utilised, and the consequences of these activities. Globalisation, and the global economy, is now characterised by the almost instantaneous flow and exchange of information, capital and cultural communication (Castells 2010). The increasing nature and scope of crime and substantial increases in immigration tend to demonstrate that, what happens in one country can have an impact in others. It is in the face of these challenges that most Western-style police agencies are attempting to professionalise their police and, as a major part of this process, are involving their Higher Education (HE) system in some format for educating their police officers. In order to understand why this should be the case, there is a need to briefly consider and understand the different types of challenges that lay ahead for the police.
Future Global Trends
The worldâs population will reach 8 billion by 2025, up from 6 billion in 2000 (National Intelligence Council 2008). However, this increase will not occur evenly across all countries. Developed countries will see a decline in population whilst those of developing countries will increase, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which will have extremely youthful populations. Developed countries will witness an ageing population rise, coupled with declining fertility rates, leading to less individuals of working age to support the population as a whole. Workers have to come from somewhere; as a consequence, we may witness a large expansion in immigration and shifts in population from one country to another. In terms of social changes then, such a population shift â which increases both migration and immigration â will bring with it the attendant risk of internal and external change within different societies. For example, the above population shift could bring about an expansion of the âmiddle classesâ across different countries, which could lead to an expansion of the consumerist society already witnessed in most Western countries to the global stage (Spybey 1996). This in turn could lead to a higher demand from communities for more service-oriented, citizen/consumer-style policing (Clarke et al. 2009), rather than a law enforcement model of policing as people come to understand their rights as consumers of private and public services.
Urbanisation is set to grow to about 60% in all countries (National Intelligence Council 2008) which not only will require a concentration of policing services within those areas but may also elicit a decline in social cohesiveness, which is required to support and promote âself-policingâ. This has been part of a continuing responsibilisation strategy for most democratic governments for some time within communities (Garland 2001).
Rapid political changes, coupled with wider social movements, are likely to exist, which might produce serious governance difficulties. There may be wider democratisation, which will lead to greater calls for transparency and accountability in policing agencies across the globe, coupled with greater franchise. This could occur despite the possibility of increased nationalism. Clearly the political landscape will be far more complicated in the future than hitherto.
Perhaps the biggest area of change for international policing will be seen in the greater use and expansion of more and more sophisticated technology on a global stage. Not only will it influence organisational behaviour and crime trends, but it will also impact upon individual and personal lifestyles. Developments in technology will further enhance the potential for greater and swifter communication between groups of people who are able to organise themselves for dealing with such activities as political protest, whilst the potential for global crime, such as terrorism, will increase exponentially. Schafer et al. (2012) suggest the following major challenges for the police in terms of the current trends in technology:
- New types of crime will come into being
- Traditional crime will become enhanced by new technologies
- There will develop a technology gap with the police falling further behind the private sector in understanding and acquiring new technologies.
Whilst new technology provides challenges for police, it can also provide benefits. For example, improvements in data analysis tools, biometrics and less lethal technologies provide enhancements for police activities.
One cannot ignore the fact that increased problems for policing agencies may occur as a result of environmental and climate change. The recent large-scale bush fires in Australia, extensive floods in UK and elsewhere in the world, and severe snow-storms in the USA, may indicate that natural disasters could increase in scale and intensity. Increased opportunities for global travel may increase the possibility of a worldwide pandemic. These potential environmental problems will in turn require different and varied responses at a national and international level, and a greater need and demand for closer cooperation between police agencies with more and wider services across the world.
Possibly more crime prevention activities will need to be in place, with the greater use of surveillance, and situational crime prevention techniques, rather than costly social interventions. The challenge for all policing agencies will be that of providing and stimulating a need for greater social cohesion/community involvement (Rogers 2012; Wedlock 2006) in the delivery of policing services due to the âthinning outâ of previously well-funded police organisations. This enhanced cooperation and partnership approach with communities will be vital in order to maintain the very legitimacy that allows for policing in democracies.
Old Structures Challenged
Like most modern organisations, police agencies in Western countries trace their origins to the countryâs industrial revolution and, consequently, their structures are similar, with workers being supervised by an overseer within a hierarchical structure that separates front-line officers from strategic policy makers (Hebdon and Kirkpatrick 2006). The paramilitary model of policing does not adapt well to external demands for change or accountability, and there is still a tendency to adhere to historical ideas regarding management practices. Therefore, policing agencies in developed countries are in need of a revolution in their organisation, leadership and management models in order to deal with the future issues that they will have to face. The fundamental tool in achieving this will be the education of police officers. The concept of community policing, whether rhetoric or reality (Green and Mastrofski 1988), is an appealing one for countries seeking to legitimise their policing process, especially when tourism or leisure economics are seen as a way of developing growth and security. However, the very idea of the Western or democratic style and structure of policing is itself in need of enormous change, and therefore international police agencies need to appreciate and understand the potential impact of future trends upon traditional police structures.
In addition, we have seen, particularly in Western-style democracies and police agencies, how the delivery of policing has altered. Previously police organisations were considered experts in their field and were standalone agencies who dealt with all crime-related matters. Over the past decade or so, there has been a drive to involve many other agencies in policing, particularly in the field of crime prevention (Rogers 2012). This has meant police officers at all levels of the organisation having to become involved in more and complex partnership working arrangements. In particular, police officers now have to work with many other professionals who are in the main, all degree or higher educationally qualified. The partnership approach to policing means that the police organisation has, in many instances, to improve its performance alongside other professionals. This also encapsulates a different form of thinking about how policing should be carried out with partners. The rise of the Problem-Oriented Policing approach (Goldstein 1990), for example, has introduced sometimes complex theory directly into mainstream policing activities. In support of more focused activities of policing and partnership working, evidence-based policing has gained momentum. Here the utilisation of information and intelligence to focus police and partner agency resources has meant that a deeper and more scientific understanding of the knowledge gathered by police and other groups is required. In many senses police officers and staff are becoming knowledge workers (Harfield et al. 2008), as more complex uses of information and intelligence are developed by the police.
Challenges for Police Organisations
Given the organisational changes to police agencies in the last decade or so, coupled with a more complex manner of dealing with crime and disorder, the way police are educated is of vital importance. Old methods of policing need to be challenged and sometimes to be replaced as societies change. The so-called professionalisation of police agencies across the globe, which includes greater involvement of HE establishments in police education, is seen as one way of dealing with such complexities.
For developing and developed countries alike, the education of their police will need to be adjusted to meet the potential global challenges that are likely to occur. Technology and financial links, coupled with increased travel technology, means that threats and risks are constructed on a global landscape as well as locally, regionally and nationally. An understanding of such, and an appreciation of how structures are connected at the global level, will be an important skill for the police in whatever country they are situated. Further, an ability to manage change at short notice, coupled with complex abilities such as an understanding of research methods, mastering and understanding technological changes and trends will be required. Factors that impact upon national and international law and an ability to integrate strategy, culture and political concerns within the organisation will also be required skills. In particular, as a framework surrounding all of these changes and ideas, police leaders of today need to understand that they were trained in a substantially non-changing, bureaucratic, structured organisation which has resulted in an organisational culture which sometimes displays fixed attitudes, and that this structure will need to be changed in order to meet the challenges of the future.
The Structure of the Book
The first part of this book discusses several aspects of professionalisation and tries to answer the question of how HE not only influences the educated officers but also changes the organisation towards professionalism. Referring to Abbott (1988: 8) âprofessions are exclusive occupational groups applying somewhat abstract knowledge to particular casesâ. And so the question occur, whether HE builds up this âabstract knowledgeâ, whether HE- institutes, meant: police academies and universities, develop this knowledge by (police) research and how both effects alter the organisation, the perception of the organisation by the citizens and therefor influences the legitimacy of the police.
In the chapter âEducation and the police professionalisation agenda: a perspective from England and Walesâ Steve Tong and Katja Hellenberg (Canterbury Christ Church University) chart the development of police learning and education from historical perspective, starting with the role of police services in providing skills and knowledge for their officers. As a result of the changes to police practice and expectations, police education has gradually moved to the hands of outside providers, particularly HE institutions. The engagement between universities and the police and the different approaches adopted are discussed. The chapter offers an in-depth analysis of the various models of policing-related degrees, discussing the issues relating to professional knowledge, academic knowledge and flexibility of learning. The professionalisation agenda is key to understanding the increasing âacademisationâ of police education and discussed here in the context of the introduction of the College of Policing and the code of ethics. Finally, the chapter considers the recent consultation around degree entry requirements for police officers and the consequences of this to serving police officers, future recruits and HE.
Anders Green (Swedish Crime Prevention Council & Swedish National Police Academy) draws the attention to Sweden, where a struggle between vocational and academic police training has been protracted and a political dimension has also developed. The social democrats put reforming police training in the top spot on their criminal political agenda for the election in 2014. During the last decade three governmental investigations have also looked into the necessity and circumstances to make police training academic, which will mean adding a yearâs training. And the police union is eagerly applauding this professionalisation in progress. Some steps have already been taken towards reforming the police education in an academic direction, even though the National Police Board is deciding the curriculum. But the training is still vocational, as the former conservative government did not consent to developing it into a bachelor degree. Noteworthy is that at the same time police training at one of universities recently has been merited with credits and its own university degree. So, the question is: What will happen next in this educational muddle?
On the other side of the word, in New Zealand, an inconsistent history of engagement between HE and police took place. Steven Darroch (University of Queensland) explains that the relationship has had its good and bad times with police and academics not really understanding each otherâs world-view or how they might constructively work together. At various points academic qualifications have been in vogue only to fall out of favour in the face of police reasserting hegemony over their own business. More recently the point of HE and academic inquiry has become clearer to police. The introduction of community policing and problem-solving approaches, coupled with the emergence of intelligence-led policing, crime sciences and third-party policing, has shown police the value of research and evidence. This in turn has driven strategic change in terms of police education under the banner of evidence-based policing. Despite this there appears some confusion as to how to weave science literacy and research skills into a qualification and training framework that makes sense. The variability of academic offerings to police has created uncertainty, with the most recent developments seeing the police partner with a polytechnic to support the development of initial training. The more practical, grounded nature of the polytechnic environmentâwhere skills similar to policing such as nursing and social practice are taughtâmay help bridge the gaps between academe, research and front-line practice when this did not seem entirely achievable up to this point.
The second part of the book searches for the recent trends of innovation of HE. This innovation applies to fundamental changes in the organisation of HE or to new approaches within existing systems.
Colin Rogers and Beth Smith (University of South Wales) give an overview of the impact of the College of Policing in the UK. The relationship between HE and policing in England and Wales has historically been an inconsistent one. The introduction of the College of Policing as an overarching body for...