The Abstract Police: A conceptual exploration of unintended changes of police organisations

Abstract

As a consequence of the 2013 police reforms in the Netherlands and Scotland, the police in both countries have made a shift towards a fundamentally different kind of organisation: the Abstract Police. The increasing abstract character resulted in changes in the internal and external relations of the police. The police became more formalised and dependent on rigid systems and system information. Citizens and communities became more at a distance. Gradual and long-term processes may have similar consequences. For that reason it may be expected that the increasingly abstract character of the police may also be found elsewhere.This paper puts forward the thesis that over the past years the police in many Western European countries have made a shift towards a fundamentally different kind of organisation, a change with far-reaching consequences, but which have remained unnoticed until now. To understand this process, we introduce a new concept, Abstract Police. With this concept we mean that, both internally and externally, the police have become more at a distance, more impersonal and formal, less direct, and more decontextualised. The abstract police are also less dependent on personal knowledge of officer(s), as this is increasingly being replaced by 'system knowledge', framed within the 'logic' and categorisations of computer data systems (Ericson and Haggerty, 1997).This break with traditional ways of organising the police can especially be found in countries such as the Netherlands and Scotland, where police reforms in 2013 have resulted in considerable organisational scale enlargement and highly centralised national forces Fyfe, 2014, 2015). The main arguments for these reforms were to improve the effectiveness of the police (especially with regard to transregional problems), partially also their efficiency, and to find solutions for problems of organisational fragmentation (Fyfe and Scott, 2013;Terpstra, 2013). As we try to show in this paper, the rise of the abstract police can partially be seen as a significant unintended outcome of these reforms. However, more gradual and long-term social developments have also contributed to this new kind of police organisation. Seen from that perspective, the 2013 police reforms in the Netherlands and Scotland have mainly strengthened and accelerated this process, making it more prominent than elsewhere. This implies that it may be assumed that increasingly abstract police forces can also be found in other Western European countries, perhaps as yet in more modest and rudimentary forms.We expect that in the future the abstract character of the police will gain in importance and have far-reaching consequences for the relations between members of the police services, for police work, and for the relations with citizens and local communities. It may also have an impact on the dominating views about what is 'good' policing and about police professionalism and leadership. For that reason we believe that the abstract police is also an important concept for reflecting on future d...

Institutional hybridity and cultural isomorphism in contemporary policing

“…In this way, contemporary professional identities have expanded to encompass a range of further roles, including constructive engagement with stakeholder groups and external communities, the recording of operational data and a range of further measures seeking to maintain legitimacy amongst external audiences. As we can see, such developments resonate strongly with the concept of the Abstract Police (Terpstra et al, 2019).…”

“…The move towards the abstraction and technologisation of police processes, according to Terpstra et al (2019), was partially, as noted above, in response to the prevalence of 'new' threats of cybercrime, organised crime and terrorism. And whilst this may resonate with some of the concepts of 'high policing' (see Brodeur, 1983Brodeur, , 2007, the concept of the Abstract Police is helpful in that it allows us to explore, particularly, the impact of these processes on the lower level operational practices of policing and those who undertake them.…”

“…To Terpstra et al (2019), the experience of Scottish police reform has been an increase in the growth of specialisms within the police organisation, especially at the national level and in areas such as "intelligence and crime analysis" (2019, p. 13). Moves toward specialisation have also been identified in other national jurisdictions by, for example, Tong and O'Neill (2019) who show how partnerships between academic and police institutions can open the way for the professionalisation and subsequent specialisation of key police roles such as investigation.…”

“…The work of writers such as Chan (1997), for example, has been instrumental in articulating our understanding of the ways in which a variety of external factors (although specific to policing) help to determine the cultural world of the police officer. Likewise, the work of Terpstra, Fyfe & Salet (2019) identifies the growing abstraction of policing (between both police organisations and communities and police officers and their colleagues) as a result of developments in the discourses of policing, changes to organisational structures and the wider police reform agenda. This conceptual paper will seek to identify and develop the impact of broader external factors, complementary to the work of both Chan (1997) and Terpstra et al (2019), which have created fundamental changes to the ways in which public sector practitioners experience the idea of 'professionalism'.…”

“…Likewise, the work of Terpstra, Fyfe & Salet (2019) identifies the growing abstraction of policing (between both police organisations and communities and police officers and their colleagues) as a result of developments in the discourses of policing, changes to organisational structures and the wider police reform agenda. This conceptual paper will seek to identify and develop the impact of broader external factors, complementary to the work of both Chan (1997) and Terpstra et al (2019), which have created fundamental changes to the ways in which public sector practitioners experience the idea of 'professionalism'. Furthermore, it will tentatively suggest that these shifts may indicate a resulting cultural change amongst police officers.…”