The Impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on Policing in England and Wales

‘That is not facilitating peaceful protest. That is dismantling the protest’: anti-fracking protesters’ experiences of dialogue policing and mass arrest

“…Community policing was thus a technique used to engineer consent for an intensification of repressive state practices, rather than a progressive response to widespread demands for greater public accountability in policing (Gordon 1984, p. 141). More recently, Bullock and Johnson's (2012) These experiences suggest that recent developments in public order policing warrant careful scrutiny. As Gorringe et al (2012, p. 112) have noted, there has been very little "empirical 'testing'" of the reforms within operational policing practice.…”

“…Community policing was thus a technique used to engineer consent for an intensification of repressive state practices, rather than a progressive response to widespread demands for greater public accountability in policing (Gordon 1984, p. 141). More recently, Bullock and Johnson's (2012) research into the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998) on policing suggests that a growing awareness of human rights obligations among police officers does not necessarily translate into more democratic policing practices. Drawing on data gathered from interviews with policing personnel, Bullock and Johnson found that although the HRA 1998 has led to a "new framework" through which police officers carry out their work, there is little evidence to suggest it has promoted greater respect for human rights amongst officers.…”

There is an alternative: Challenging the logic of neoliberal penality

“…Nonetheless, a human rights ethos has manifestly not developed within existing criminal justice institutions. Despite the significant reforms made to the English police service following the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent Macpherson Inquiry (Macpherson, 1999), the police are still believed to be ‘institutionally racist’ (Rollock, 2009) and their practices have changed little since the Human Rights Act 1998 (see Bullock and Johnson, 2012). Similarly, it has been asserted that no human rights culture has been instilled in the prison service (Eady, 2007).…”

Sociology and the European Court of Human Rights

“…Because states do tend to implement individual and general measures required in ECtHR judgments, domestic legislative changes do have an impact 'on the ground'. Although the effectiveness of the ECtHR and international law generally should not be overplayed -existing research shows, for example, that human rights law has variable influence on the working practices of criminal justice professionals (Costigan and Thomas, 2005;Donald et al, 2008;Bullock and Johnson, 2012) -an ECtHR judgment can provide a powerful way to regulate the behaviour of 'street-level bureaucrats' (Lipsky, 1980) in European states. An example of this can be seen in the effect of the ECtHR's judgment in a case which concerned a complaint about the blanket retention by police in England and Wales of DNA samples and fingerprints taken from individuals charged with, but not subsequently convicted of, a recordable (criminal) offence (S. and Marper v the United Kingdom, 04/12/08).…”