Black humour ‐ making light of death

Abstract

This paper explores one aspect of how a police oral tradition works, and the ways a savage black humour is brought to bear as the members assuage problems in scavenging for society, as they tidy up a constant stream of what are often extremely messy or ‘bad’ deaths. Plowing an interstitial furrow between the victims of these ‘sudden deaths’ and the surviving relatives and grieving friends creates a ‘piggy in the middle’ situation, while a crucial need to be economic with or to temper the truth on many of these occasions helps create a further boundary between them and the public they allegedly serve. The paper thus reveals the complexity of one small area of police culture which is often hidden from the outsider; for the stories about ‘bad’ deaths and the savage black humour these generate becomes a performative mediator, allowing the young constables to face the realities of these mortifying processes, and always be in command of situations that are often incongruous and usually appalling.