{"title":"The fourth power. A mapping of police oversight agencies in Europe and Quebec","authors":"Simon Varaine, Sebastian Roché","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2223741","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2223741","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Independent police oversight bodies are advocated by human rights organisations to be the most credible and effective solution to address the misbehaviors and systemic malfunction. They have emerged in parallel with independent regulatory agencies in various economic sectors, thus signalling a new trend in governance interpreted as the rise of a ‘fourth power.’ Still, comparative knowledge is scarce about the nature of delegation of power to police oversight agencies (POAs) and their actions. By analyzing 25 POAs in 20 countries, this article seeks to precisely describe their features in Europe and Quebec (Canada): the timeline of their birth, the scope of delegation (remit, formal independence, powers, resources), and the variations in how they execute their mandate. We unveil a profound heterogeneity across countries. In terms of national patterns, the main divide is between specialised (police only, limited formal independence, more abundant resources) and non-specialised (all public administrations, strong formal independence, limited resources) agencies. The latter tend to act as a public fire alarm to compensate for their lack of resources. Our mapping also contrasts European countries’ oversight mechanisms, which rely on professional agencies that are mostly established at the national or state/regional level, with local civilian oversight boards in the US. And, while our results confirm that the 1990s marked a watershed, they question the notion that agencification in the police sector has been a vector for revolution in its governance, since no POA incorporates all the traits required for them to be the fourth power just yet.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122133572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Doing gender and professional identity: inclusion and exclusion of female civilians in criminal investigations","authors":"Ulrika Haake, Ola J. Lindberg, Oscar Rantatalo","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2221764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2221764","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The number of civilian crime investigators (CIs) has been increasing among the police, a trend that is called civilianisation. However, conflicts have arisen from perceptions that civilian CIs undermine professional police efforts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the intersection of doing gender and professional identity in narratives on inclusion and/or exclusion in CIs’ professional practices. Because professional background and gender composition change with the civilianisation of the police, this study included interviews with 48 female CIs from Sweden. The study showed that aspects of belongingness and uniqueness interact in complex ways and conclude that the intersection of being a civilian CI and a woman is at the core, especially in narratives on exclusion. Taken together, this means that civilian CIs’ narratives are important to learn from and can help the police become aware of obstacles to and opportunities for civilian employees’ full participation in the criminal investigation practice. Aspects of belongingness and uniqueness are discussed to contribute knowledge of how gender and professional identity can be redone in a way that helps reduce future barriers to full inclusion of female and civilian CIs in police work.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126558892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Not everybody can do this job’: a qualitative inquiry into emotional labour from RCMP detachment services assistants","authors":"Mark Jones, Rosemary Ricciardelli, Mark Norman","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2218973","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2218973","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 Many police organisations employ and rely on public servants to complete specialised tasks with their organisations. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) regularly hires public servants known as Detachment Services Assistants (DSAs) to take on various support roles. As part of DSAs’ many clerical and administrative responsibilities, these workers must often perform emotional labour across different job tasks, which in turn, can be a personal yet occupationally mandated source of stress and strain. In the current study, we draw from semi-structured interviews with DSAs (n = 54) to investigate the different situations in which DSAs undertake emotional labour, the various styles of emotional labour DSAs perform, and the negative toll emotional labour places on DSAs in their workplace. Our research aims to contribute to the broader emotional labour literature on policing and the niche police literature on public servants, a form of civilian staff, employed by the RCMP.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"80 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121776708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘We need to use the entire toolbox’ storytelling in the unarmed Norwegian police","authors":"B. Barland","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2218527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2218527","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Norway is one of the few European countries in which the police, in the course of their normal duties, are unarmed. Based on a risk assessment, Norwegian police were permanently armed from 25th November 2014 and 3rd February 2016. This was the longest period during which the police in Norway had been routinely armed, and an evaluation of their experience was required, the aim being to collect police officers’ own experiences from this period. The police interviewees (n = 30) answered specific and detailed questions. Surprisingly, they answered more than the questions asked of them, they told stories before, during and after the interviews which highlighted uncertainty in the service indicating the need to be armed. The evaluation found that these stories were repeated in every police district used in the data collection. They described observable phenomena; they meant something central to those who were interviewed. The question was: What were the stories about? Which challenges did these stories point to? What forms of justification for the arming of the police do we find in them? In the article we see storytelling through a (cultural) sociological approach as attempts at justification and legitimation","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132730535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting the demeanour effect: a video-observational analysis of encounters between law enforcement officers and citizens in Amsterdam","authors":"Hans Myhre Sunde, D. Weenink, M. R. Lindegaard","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2216839","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2216839","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We investigate the ‘demeanour hypothesis’, stating that police officers are more likely to arrest and use force against citizens who display a ‘bad attitude’. We observed 78 encounters captured on surveillance cameras in the city of Amsterdam. Video material allowed us to code specific behaviours (‘citizen pointed at officer’) instead of the more ambiguous interpretation of behaviour (‘citizen was disrespectful’) used in prior studies. We employ two regression analyses to estimate the extent to which different types of citizens’ behaviour – ‘bad attitude’, non-compliance, and aggression and crime – relate to physical coercive behaviour by law enforcement agents. After controlling for non-compliant, aggressive and criminal behaviours, as well as situational and individual features, citizens’ ‘bad attitude’ behaviours remain associated with physical coercion. However, our data also shows that the effects of aggressive and criminal behaviours are far stronger than that of ‘bad attitude’ behaviours. Yet, there is an observable ‘demeanour effect’ in our sample. Conceptually, we provide a more thorough behavioural description of what a ‘bad attitude’ looks like. Practically, our findings can be used in training, such as scenario or VR training, in order to raise officers’ awareness of citizens’ behaviours, and may assist them to prevent escalation in their encounters with the public.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121443411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The analysis of excessive disciplinary action and the effect of disciplinary rationalization policy: an empirical analysis of the results of disciplinary appeals reviews for police officers","authors":"Jisuk Jeong, Jaeseong Jang","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2214337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2214337","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis to examine whether police officers are disciplined more severely than other government officers. We used data on disciplinary actions in cases of bribery, which had been extracted from the casebook on disciplinary appeals reviews (2004–2018) published by the Appeals Commission of the Republic of Korea. The results of the ordinal logistic regression for the entire period (2004–2018) show that disciplinary actions imposed by the police agency were more severe than other government agencies. However, in a period-separated analysis of police disciplinary rationalisation policies in 2011, the differences in the level of disciplinary actions between the police and other agencies were only significant in the former period (2004–2011). The difference was not significant in the latter (2012–2018). This implies that the police agency imposed more severe disciplinary actions than other government agencies in the past. However, the latter period analysis implies that the disciplinary tendency of the police changed due to the effectiveness of the disciplinary rationalisation policy of the South Korean police agency.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":" 16","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120828782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Safety, privacy, or both: evaluating citizens’ perspectives around artificial intelligence use by police forces","authors":"Yasmine Ezzeddine, P. Bayerl, Helen Gibson","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2211813","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2211813","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Police forces are increasing their use of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for security purposes. However, citizens are often aware and cautious about advanced policing capabilities which can impact negatively on the perceived legitimacy of policing efforts and police more generally. This study explores citizens’ subjective perspectives to police use by AI, including tensions between security, privacy, and resistance. Using Q methodology with 43 participants in the UK, Netherlands, and Germany we identified five distinct perspectives towards AI use by police forces. The five perspectives illustrate the complex, diverse viewpoints citizens exhibit with respect to AI use by police and highlight that citizens’ perspectives are more complex than often portrayed. Our findings offer theoretical and practical implications for public engagement around general versus personal safety, privacy and potentials for moral dilemmas and counter-reactions.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"131 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114088606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ignacio Elpidio Domínguez Ruiz, A. Rué, Olga Jubany
{"title":"Drawing a line: boundary work in victim support police work","authors":"Ignacio Elpidio Domínguez Ruiz, A. Rué, Olga Jubany","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2213803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2213803","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Victim support entails one of the most intense stress- and trauma-laden interactions faced by law enforcement professionals, and this function or role frequently triggers long-lasting negative effects on officers’ psychological health and wellbeing. As police officers interact daily with victims, but also with other officers, social services, and institutions, the limits between tasks and needs may directly affect how they manage stress, trauma, and notions of individual and organisational responsibility. As such, boundary work may be a useful framework to understand and even improve how victim support police officers interact with other individuals and organisations. Drawing from a ground-breaking qualitative, in-depth research with police officers that provide support to victims of gender-based and domestic violence, this paper analyses conscious and unconscious boundaries as key elements in the officers’ wellbeing. Informed by the empirical findings of a case study of Catalonia's Mossos d’Esquadra police corps, this paper explores how victim support officers negotiate their individual and organisational boundaries as they interact with other agents and institutions, and how these negotiations affect them. This paper argues for the relevance of an officer's agency and discretion for distinguishing between conscious and unconscious boundaries, as their limits may be blurred throughout the wide range of interactions.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126540458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wendy M. Koslicki, Dale W. Willits, Maayan Simckes
{"title":"The ‘civilizing effect’ and ‘deterrence spectrum’ revisited: results of a national study of body-worn cameras on fatal police force","authors":"Wendy M. Koslicki, Dale W. Willits, Maayan Simckes","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2213804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2213804","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Body-worn cameras have, since their rapid emergence from 2014 onward, long been touted as an important part of police reform efforts, given their hypothesised effects. The two most prominent mechanisms through which they reduce police force are the ‘civilizing effect’, whereby citizens self-monitor their behaviour when they are aware of being recorded, and the ‘deterrence effect’, whereby law enforcement officers are deterred from misusing coercion when there are more agency policies in place that remove their discretion in camera activation. Using a national sample of local (municipal and county) law enforcement agencies in the United States that have adopted and deployed body-worn cameras, we examine whether a policy requiring officers to inform the public of recording (a measure of the ‘civilizing effect’) and an index of policies requiring officers to activate their cameras for specific events (a measure of the ‘deterrence spectrum’) significantly reduce fatal police use of force, which we measure through a comprehensive dataset linking four major open-source fatal force datasets. Our multilevel Poisson model indicates that neither hypothesised mechanism significantly affects an agency’s fatal police use of force numbers. Given these findings, it is unlikely that these two predominate explanations behind BWC efficacy are actually impacting the fatal force-reducing capabilities of body-worn cameras. We therefore discuss further implications and additional considerations for agencies to reduce their fatal police force.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129206853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Over and out: the damaged and conflicting identities of officers voluntarily resigning from the police service","authors":"S. Charman, Jemma Tyson","doi":"10.1080/10439463.2023.2200249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2200249","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper seeks to understand the complexities associated with managing and ultimately exiting a career in the police through an analysis of semi-structured interviews undertaken with 27 police officers who voluntarily resigned from an English police force between 2014 and 2019. It does this through a microsociological approach to the study of identity construction which focuses upon the interactive and shifting relationships within policing identities and considers both the role of the individual and of the organisation itself in identity management. The findings indicate that police officers suffer irreconcilable identity threats through an incompatibility between their work and non-work roles and a perception that their work is not valued or recognised and has not met their prior expectations. These issues are exacerbated for those returning from maternity leave and for primary care givers and further by the salience of the policing identity. Despite undertaking identity work in order to align the incongruity in their conflicted and damaged identities and despite their attempts to mitigate the impact of implicit organisational control through the management of identities, officers ultimately feel that their only course of action is to voluntarily resign.","PeriodicalId":243832,"journal":{"name":"Policing and Society","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115538305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}