A question of scandal? The police and the phone-hacking business

Abstract

Scandals have featured consistently in the development and operation of public policing in England and Wales. However, criminologists have rarely explored scandal as a concept or its attempted management by criminal justice organisations. This article contributes to the filling of this gap with the intention of initiating debate on the utility of scandal as a conceptual tool for the analysis of policing and criminal justice. It identifies the core components of a scandal using an analytical framework informed by scandal research undertaken across disciplinary areas. Taking a case study approach, this framework is applied to the Leveson Inquiry which explored a combination of potentially scandalous episodes within the overarching scandal of phone-hacking. The article concludes that phone-hacking was a scandal at macro and micro levels under this framework yet damage to the reputation of the police was mitigated through active impression management and enduring characteristics of the police image.

Social media, police excessive force and the limits of outrage: Evaluating models of police scandal

“…. breach of trust by an individual or organization invested with authority’ (Mawby, 2017: 489); (2) a period of publicisation in which the transgression becomes known in the public sphere; (3) responses, ‘. .…”

“…. which may be articulated in a number of ways and to different scales’ by the involved parties – community and pressure groups, elected representatives and commentators (Mawby, 2017: 490); and finally, (4) judgements ‘. .…”

“…made about the meaning of the scandal for the transgressor and the various affected audiences. These judgements have consequences for reputations, relationships of trust and confidence, and future policy and legislation’ (Mawby, 2017: 490). Mawby argues that this model ‘.…”

“…. provides the flexibility required to capture complexity that will reveal the effects of scattered images, long-standing halos and the resonance of symbolic power’ (Mawby, 2017: 490) (see also (Loader and Mulcahy, 2003).…”

“…. on the utility of scandal as a conceptual tool for the analysis of policing and criminal justice’ (Mawby, 2017: 485); (2) brings a legal focus to the scrutiny of police scandal generated by police excessive force; and (3) offers the concept of ‘chronic’ scandal to explain the recursive and unresolved relationship between police excessive force, police accountability and civilian expectations. The findings show the 2013 Sydney Mardi Gras scandal adheres to Mawby’s four-dimensional model of scandal, a local, micro scandal in this case; a police officer had used excessive force – a transgression – and bystander video of the incident was publicised through YouTube, triggering a range of institutional, public and legal responses and judgements.…”