What is Policing?

P.A.J Waddington, Martin Wright

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781844453559
• eBook ISBN: 9781844456567
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This text provides an accessible, up-to-date and thought-provoking introduction to policing for all those undertaking degrees and foundation degrees. It aims not only to inform students and prepare them for their course, but also to expose them to some of the challenges they will face as they begin their studies and/or policing careers. This book is the essential foundation for the Policing Matters series, explaining what policing is, what the police do, the context for policing and what are the main issues it faces and challenges it poses.

1    Why a policing degree?

The purpose of the book

This book is aimed at all those higher education students who are taking degree-level vocational courses in policing. It is important to draw attention to the vocational aspect of these degrees, for there are many courses available that study policing as an object of inquiry, usually as part of criminology and criminal justice courses. The approach of these latter courses is to examine policing, much as one might examine parliamentary democracy – that is, as an important institution that deserves scrutiny in order find out and critique how it works. That knowledge is only tangentially related to being a good and effective police officer, just as studying parliamentary democracy is unlikely to get you elected as a Member of Parliament. The approach of this series is quite different: we are in the business of producing a new generation of professional police officers. This book and others in the series aim to provide skills and knowledge that will not only facilitate entry to the police, but also provide a sound foundation for a professional policing career. This involves learning a great deal, but also acquiring habits of mind – scepticism, rigour, respect for reason and evidence – that will become increasingly relevant during the twenty-first century. This entails abandoning some misleading, but popular, beliefs about policing, as well as learning what might be uncomfortable truths. However, we would be sad if, at the end of this book, you did not feel inspired to forge a career in policing!

A word of welcome

Welcome to this book and the series of which it forms a part. Welcome also to your degree-level course in policing. Finally, welcome to the commencement of your policing career. Make no mistake, your career begins once you arrive at your university. It may even commence once you make it known that you have applied for, let alone been accepted on to, your university course. You will notice that others tend to treat you differently once they learn of your ambitions, but this is just the beginning, because as a police officer (which you aspire to become) you will be set apart from the remainder of the population. Police officers (as this book will demonstrate) have onerous responsibilities and enormous powers to coerce their fellow citizens. Staff and students will expect more of you, as a policing student, than they will of other students. You will be expected to behave more responsibly and conscientiously. If you fail to do so and behave generally like most students, others will look aghast and exclaim, ‘And them, policing students as well! We’d have expected better of them!!!’ Get used to it! Policing is as much a matter of character as it is of intellect. This is not to say that intellectual demands on a policing degree are fewer than on other courses. Instead, it means that, in addition to the stringent intellectual demands that will be made upon you, there will also be a test of character. In short, a policing degree is not a soft option; it is among the hardest ways to earn a degree. So, the question you have to answer is, ‘Are you tough enough to do this?’

When you have decided that you are, read on.

A policing degree?

Almost all policing degrees are offered in collaboration with one or more police forces, with whom those developing the degree will have collaborated prior to its formal validation, and usually the respective police force will offer work placements of some kind for students on the degree course. Some policing degrees are only available to students who are already serving police officers. So, why do so many police forces throughout the UK believe that it is desirable for their officers to have a degree? The answer is provided by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary who, in 2002, carried out a ‘Thematic Inspection of Police Training’. The subsequent report stated:

If the Service is to be viewed as a profession, the initial training and development provided must be comparable with other professions and, in particular, those within the criminal justice system. The sum total of formal training which a probationer receives is around 31 weeks out of the 104-week probationary period. No other profession within this system would allow new staff to practise after so little training or without the achievement of a recognised qualification.

(HMIC, 2002, para. 4.2)

That report estimated that, on the first day of patrolling, a police officer needs to be familiar with 5,000 pieces of legislation. That’s right, 5,000! But that is not all: police officers need to be knowledgeable about all of the following.

• Case law made on a daily basis by judges sitting in the highest courts of the land making decisions about how statutes passed by Parliament should be interpreted and what constitutes an offence under Common Law (the unwritten law that has been passed down by previous generations).
• Using protective equipment appropriately.
• Providing first aid to those who have been injured.
• Distinguishing between people who are agitated and aggressive because they are intoxicated; because they are diabetic and suffering from an insulin overdose; or because they are mentally ill or emotionally disturbed; as well as taking appropriate action as needed.
• Recognising as victims those who have been traumatised by a crime they have witnessed.
• Appreciating cultural diversity that might influence how closely you stand to another person or how firmly you shake their hand.
• Actively engaging with all those in an area who can influence behaviour and forming partnerships with them to address local problems.
• Identifying recurring problems that might be symptoms of a deeper malaise; researching that problem to find solutions to it; persuading others to play their part in applying the solution; and evaluating its success.
• And much else besides.

This is, to put it mildly, a demanding job description and yet those recruited as officers receive only sparse training in the very basics of the work. Previous generations of officers have jealously guarded the value of ‘on-the-job’ training and with good reason, because it is only by experiencing some of the realities of policing that you, or anyone else, will come to understand what is required. You will experience life as you never knew it: squalor that leaves you wondering whether this country is truly a part of the developed world; depravity on a scale you never imagined; duplicity honed to precision by people for whom this is their sole social skill; dead bodies aplenty (some of them partially devoured by pets driven mad by starvation); oh yes, and criminals who will swear black is white even when the contrary is plainly in view!

Valuable – indeed indispensable – as experience is, it is not all there is to being an effective police officer in modern Britain. Public expectations have never been higher and the knowledge required has never been so esoteric. The professionalisation of policing is long overdue and, as a student on a policing degree, you will be a pioneer in this process. There are many advantages to pioneering, not least the chance to take your pick of opportunities, but there are costs too – fear and distrust among those who do not share your advantages. Managing that fear and distrust is also a test of character. Wear your professionalism lightly, but never shed it!

Professionalisation of the police is a 20-year project, which will only be complete when all recruits have qualifications similar to those you aspire to obtain at the conclusion of your course. An all-graduate profession is better than nothing, but will not attain professionalisation. That relies on the recruitment of people who have acquired, through dedicated study and deep reflection on their work placement, an in-depth appreciation of their work, and an ability and desire to challenge established practices and become agents of transformation. For policing in Britain, as elsewhere, remains largely as it was conceived in the nineteenth century, but the society that is policed has changed enormously. It is vital that a new generation of police officers can recognise what should remain constant in policing and what should change; what is myth and what is reality; what is desirable and what is dangerous. This is why professional police officers must retain intellectual curiosity throughout their careers, and intellectual curiosity is the most valuable skill that you will acquire during your degree studies.

A career in policing can be enormously challenging and fulfilling; to a policing student who is committed to a professional police career, it offers abundant opportunities. To a policing student who is committed to a professional career, it offers the prospect of making a difference to the world in which we live.

A policing degree?

Why must professionalisation rely upon vocational degree-level courses in universities? It was to provide vocational degrees that the vast majority of universities were founded, even the most eminent. At first, universities educated the priesthood, and then medicine increasingly required a university education. The burgeoning industrialisation of the nineteenth century provided a hunger for engineers and others with specialist knowledge. Increasingly, as the British economy became a knowledge economy, that demand has spread to new occupations that rely upon information technology. The growth of welfare occupations led to a similar revolution in the status of teachers, nurses and social workers. Just as one would not wish to be treated by an unqualified physician or nurse, educated by a teacher without a professional training, or counselled by an unqualified social worker, so it is becoming increasingly anomalous for a police officer to lack an equivalent qualification.

Those with established professional status inevitably look askance at occupations struggling to establish themselves in the pantheon of the professions. So it is inevitable that those devising such degrees will strive to ensure that a degree in policing is equally, if not more, intellectually demanding than any other degree offered by their university. Just as your character will be tested during your degree course, so too will be your intellect. There is plenty of scope for intellectual rigour in policing degrees, because the police role is so diverse. What use, one might ask, is a police public order commander who does not have a firm grasp of crowd psychology and the politics of protest? What use is a police investigator who does not understand how forensic scientists collect and process materials at crime scenes so as to produce good evidence? What use is a sergeant who has never considered the management of people very deeply? What use are police officers who do not appreciate cultural diversity in the society that they must deal with on a daily basis? This only skims the surface, but highlights the wide range of academic disciplines that have direct relevance to building a professional police service. No one can claim to cover it all – a policing degree is only the beginning of a professional police career, but should be a sound foundation for future learning. Different universities will emphasise those aspects of the police role that reflect their mix of expertise, so the diligent student should evaluate each degree and choose that which best engages their attention.

Not everyone who takes a policing degree will become a police officer. As we will discuss in Chapter 8, the concept of policing embraces more than the police themselves. Apart from police forces, there is an army of investigators and security guardians employed by central and local government. These range from the exotica of the secret security service to the more mundane, but nonetheless valuable, investigators of social security or tax fraud. In addition, for every sworn police officer there are at least two or three private security operatives who perform functions very similar to those of the police. However, not everyone will continue into a career associated with policing for a wide variety of personal reasons. They should rest assured that vocational degrees, especially those as demanding as policing degrees, are favoured by employers who appreciate the intellectual demands and tests of character that are involved.

The purpose and structure of this book

The series of which this book is the first to be published aims to support degree courses that seek to provide a foundation for a professional career in policing. The task this book aims to perform is the excavation of the foundations into which others can pour concrete knowledge and skills. Excavation is an apt metaphor because we aim in this book to dig beneath the surface of mythology that surrounds policing and challenge popular misconceptions. We hope also to open up new ways of imagining policing and recognising the challenges that exist in the police role and lie ahead. We will frankly consider some of the dangers that also lie ahead for the police recruit – dangers that do not lurk on the streets, but in ways that police have traditionally responded to the complexities of their role. Finally, we look beyond the police organisation to others who contribute to the maintenance of law and order, appraising not only the positive contribution that should be recognised and harnessed, but also the problems that surround partnership with those whose mission it is to maintain order.

Learning features

This book is interactive – not intended simply to be read, but used to stimulate activities and discussions among students, whether in class or outside. There are case studies drawing attention to specific examples relevant to the text; and tasks in which you should engage in order to get the most out of the text.

The main aim of the book is to encourage reflection – to prompt you to consider how you would deal with situations and what you would feel about them. Another aim is to appraise how the police currently deal with those situations and how this may be improved. At this stage of your career you may or may not have begun work as a police officer, special constable or Police Community Support Officer, but once you do you should continue to reflect on the issues. Above all, this book should challenge how you regard policing. If you conclude that it simply confirms what you already knew, this book will have failed. Challenging your assumptions is not intended to be comfortable, but will help you to begin the process of becoming a fully professional police officer.

REFERENCES

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (2002) Training Matters. London: HMIC.

2 Introduction: law and order

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CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

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By the end of this chapter you should be able to:

• recognise how media representation of crime and policing distorts reality;
• have a more realistic understanding of crime;
• understand its relationship to policing;
• appreciate the limitations and weaknesses of the view of policing as ‘crimefighting’.

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Introduction

The police officer is such a familiar figure in daily life and such a staple of fiction that many of you may imagine that you know exactly what the police do. The police prevent crime, enforce the law and detect offenders by picking their way through the thickets of evidence, pursuing leads and possessing an unerring sixth sense for unmasking the criminal. Criminals are wily, devious and knowledgeable about how to exploit their rights to defeat the ends of justice, while victims are unblemished paragons of virtue in need of protection. Criminologists have discovered what is called the ‘law of opposites’ (Surette, 1998), which is that more or less everything that appears in the me...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Why a policing degree?
• 2 Introduction: law and order
• 3 What police do
• 4 Authority and discretion
• 5 A people business
• 6 Police culture: canteens, carriers and carousing!
• 7 Wrongdoing and accountability
• 8 Police and policing
• Index