Ethnography and the Evocative World of Policing (Part I)

Bacon, Matthew; Loftus, Bethan; Rowe, Michael

doi:10.1080/10439463.2019.1701453

Cited by 20 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Participants were able to resolve tensions between their role as enforcers of drug laws with support for DCS by highlighting drug checking as a tool for increasing safety at a community and individual level. Such findings highlight that frontline police officers do not merely enforce legislation but, rather, actively participate in a process of interpreting and implementing the law, mediated by a range of complex, and sometimes competing, demands, interests, values and beliefs [27,47,64]. Participants often strongly identified with their role in preserving life and working to ensure safer communities, with DCS seen as having the potential to contribute to these goals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Challenges for drug checking services in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of police perceptions

et al. 2022

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Background The impact of policing practices on the engagement of people who use drugs (PWUD) with harm reduction services is well evidenced. Although the police have traditionally taken an enforcement role in responding to drug use, it is increasingly clear that they can play an important part in multiagency delivery of harm reduction interventions. Despite this, there have been no studies exploring police officer perceptions of drug checking services (DCS), which provide analytical testing of client drug samples alongside harm reduction support and advice. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 police officers to explore the policing and legal challenges which could be encountered in the delivery of DCS in Scotland. Results Participants expressed general support for DCS and described this support as part of a wider organisational shift towards public health-oriented policing. Participants also discussed different potential approaches to the policing of areas surrounding DCS including: formal limits on police presence around the service and/or stop and search powers in relation to personal possession; the effective decriminalisation of personal possession within a specified boundary around the service; and informal agreements between local divisions and DCS outlining expected policing practices. Any formal limitation on the capacity of police officers to respond to community concerns was viewed as problematic and as having the potential to erode public confidence in policing. Participants also highlighted the potential for frontline officers to utilise discretion in ways which could undermine public health goals. Legislative change, or national strategic guidance from relevant stakeholders, was seen as a means of providing ‘cover’, enabling local divisions to support the operation of drug checking. Conclusions Despite a small sample of participants, this study summarises key challenges to be addressed in the implementation and operation of DCS in Scotland, and more widely. The paper concludes with suggested opportunities to develop approaches to policing that can facilitate rather than impede implementation and operation of these services.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Challenges for drug checking services in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of police perceptions

et al. 2022

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“…It is the first research to make a cross-national comparison of Australian and New Zealand policing using an ethnographic approach. While police ethnography has been somewhat commonplace in the Northern Hemisphere (Manning, 2014; Bacon et al , 2020), there is no such tradition in Australia and New Zealand. Therefore it is important to acknowledge the foresight of New Zealand Police (NZPOL) and South Australia Police (SAPOL) to provide research access, a decision perhaps somewhat mediated by my status as a sworn officer at the time of the research (see Hendy, 2020b).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This research took an ethnographic approach to “explore and gain rich information” (Bacon et al , 2020, p. 4) about the practice of police officer behaviour during police-citizen encounters. Two research sites were chosen: South City a large metropolitan city in South Australia and New City a large provincial city in New Zealand [1].…”

Section: Methodological Notementioning

confidence: 99%

Suspicious minds and suspicioning: constructing suspicion during policework

Hendy

2021

JOE

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PurposeThis article explores officer use of suspicion before informal police-citizen encounters as a method to further understand police officer decision-making. There is a body of research focused on officer decision-making before formal “stop and search” encounters, yet, while the more informal “stop and chat” encounters are ubiquitous, they are a comparatively under-researched part of policework.Design/methodology/approachThe research takes an ethnographic approach to explore police decision-making. It used participant observation (800 h over 93 patrol shifts) of front-line first response officers from New Zealand (n = 45) and South Australia (n = 48). Field observations were complemented with informal discussion in the field and 27 semi-structured interviews.FindingsIt reveals that officers applied three situational “tests” to assess the circumstances or actions observed before initiating an informal encounter. Officers then weighed up whether the circumstances were harmful, contrary to law, or socially acceptable to determine the necessity of initiating a police-citizen encounter. This process is conceived as suspicioning: deciding whether circumstances appear prima facie suspicious, how an officer goes about collecting more information to corroborate suspicion to ultimately inform a course of action.Originality/valueThe findings present a new perspective to understanding how and why police officers decide to initiate encounters with members of the public. Moreover, as the first ethnographic cross-national research of officers from New Zealand and South Australia, it provides a rare comparative glimpse of Antipodean policing.

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“…This article is thus based on interview data and observations, mainly from 2018-2019. 2 These methods enable access to the internal values and tacit understandings that guide police work (Bacon et al, 2020), including officers' more nuanced and reflexive perceptions of their roles and what shapes them. Integral to this analysis is how deeply politicised the police and policing in Ghana are, which has intensified during the last two decades, both at a structural level and in the everyday.…”

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confidence: 99%

Assembling Community Policing: Peacekeeping and the Ghana Police Service’s Transformation Agenda

Albrecht¹

2022

Cont. J. Afr. Stud.

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This article shows how peacekeeping experiences manifest in the Ghana Police Service’s (GPS) community policing strategies and practices in often inconspicuous and individualized ways. Peacekeeping constitutes an important element of what the article refers to as the community policing assemblage. However, the article emphasises that the shape of the community policing assemblage is conditioned by a wide range of discourses and practices beyond peacekeeping. Global and national policies and strategies relating to policing, including the GPS’s own transformation agenda, local and individual interpretations and translations of peacekeeping experiences and what community policing means, all play into how the assemblage is formed. Thus, the article disentangles the effects of peacekeeping and puts it in the context of broader policing in Ghana, based on in-depth interviews and observations with police officers, mainly from the GPS’s community policing headquarters in Tesano, Accra. It concludes that while several studies have shown how peacekeeping has shaped Ghana’s security institutions and sense of role in the world, it has not been able to chip away at or counteract the deep and deepening control that security institutions in the country are subjected to by politicians. Arguing that the peacekeeping experience may have a profound transformative effect on individual police officers, yet little if any impact in terms of depoliticising the GPS and policing more broadly, is a less sweeping conclusion. However, suggesting that the effects of peacekeeping often are local and individualized, at times deeply embodied experiences, is also a more accurate conclusion empirically.

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Ethnography and the Evocative World of Policing (Part I)

Cited by 20 publications

References 43 publications

Challenges for drug checking services in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of police perceptions

Challenges for drug checking services in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of police perceptions

Suspicious minds and suspicioning: constructing suspicion during policework

Assembling Community Policing: Peacekeeping and the Ghana Police Service’s Transformation Agenda

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