Change in Policing, Changing Police
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http://anj.sagepub.com/ofCriminology
Australian & New Zealand Journal
http://anj.sagepub.com/content/28/1_suppl/62The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/00048658950280S108
1995 28: 62Australian & New Zealand Journal of CriminologyDavid Dixon
Change in Policing, Changing Police
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Change in Policing, Changing Police
avi ixon
Introduction
Clifford Shearings contribution to the study of policing has been outstanding.
In a series of areas, his work has introduced new ways of seeing and
understanding. The collection which he edited on Organizational Police
Deviance
1981)
has become a standard point of reference for people trying
to move beyond the confines of standard analyses of official corruption and
misconduct. His work with Philip Stenning on private policing
1984, 1987)
criticised the orthodox identification of policing with the state in a way which,
in the light of subsequent developments Johnston 1992; Shearing 1992),
seems remarkably prescient. With Richard Ericson
199 1),
he challenged the
accepted normative conceptualization of police culture, and in its place
offered an account drawing on postmodernist theory which sees culture as
carried and transmitted by narratives and stories. With Mike Brogden 1993),
his study of policing in South Africa rejects the usual attempts simply to
import British and North American policing, and instead suggests that South
Africa offers much for us to learn. In each of these areas of study, Shearings
work demonstrates a concern for theory which so often has been lacking in
policing studies.
Private
and
public policing
In the paper above, Shearing draws from his work on police culture and
private policing in the South African context to propose ways of transforming
policing which are fresh and of direct relevance to those attempting to change
policing around the world. Not surprisingly, the analysis is controversial.
Popular policing is Janus-faced: one side is a communitarian ideal of policing
by and for a responsible civil society; the other is discrimination, vigilantism,
excessive punishments, and an absence of due process. Of course, the real
world is not dichotomized in this way. Despite their enthusiasm
for
communal
self-policing, Brogden and Shearing acknowledge the sometimes horrific
expressions of popular policing in black South African communities which
were allowed by the apartheid state to suffer appalling levels of serious crime.
Nevertheless, some critics have been harsh about the optimism in their
account eg Guelke
1995:419).
Getting away from the state is problematic in at least two respects. First,
South Africa exemplifies the malevolent effects of the state on its subjects. The
civil society
of
black South Africa has an admirable vitality and strength, but
it also bears scars of the disorganization and ideological pollution inflicted by
the apartheid state. Second, there is the paradox that change requires action by
the state, and positive involvement by state institutions in their own
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052,
Australia.
6
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64 1995) The A ustralian and New Zealand Jo urnal of Criminology
trivial. Instead, Shearing and Ericson present these stories as the key to
understanding police culture. It is through telling and hearing them that
officers know how to act. Importantly, this account provides for agency:
officers are not cultural dopes, but make choices in performing police work.
Shearing makes clear the implications for police reform: in his view, most
efforts at bringing about cultural change have been ineffective because their
subject has been misunderstood. This account of culture is an excellent
example of the use
as
opposed to mere recitation) of theory. Many
criminologists who have been intimidated or alienated by postmodernist
theory will see here the value of theorising in this way. However, some
qualifications may be raised.
Their account provides a convincing way of understanding police activity
on the street. The construction and deployment of suspicion, in particular, is
much better understood through this type of analysis than simplistic
assumptions about cultural norms.
This
has important implications for the
legal regulation of street policing, which has often failed because its nature
was misunderstood by rule-makers Dixon et a1 1989). However, the rejection
of a normative conception of culture is taken too far. Contrary to Shearing and
Ericsons argument 1991:482), there are cultural rules for which the evidence
is not merely and tautologically) the activity which they are supposed to
explain. In my experience of fieldwork in policing, there are informal rules
which are expressed and experienced as prohibitions and directives, and
which are not merely retrospective justifications for action. Obvious examples
are rules of collective solidarity eg back up your colleagues and dont snitch
or dob) and rules of behaviour eg dont let a challenge to your authority pass
without response). There may well be stories which convey the same message:
stories and norms may be complementary. In challenging the orthodoxy,
Shearing goes too far: there would appear to be good explanatory reasons for
and no theoretical reasons against) developing a broad conception of culture
which includes both elements. For example, Janet Chan has done this in her
combination of insights from organisational theory with Bourdieus analysis
of habitus and field Chan 1996a; see also 1996b). This approach, which sees
police culture as constituted by interaction between the legal and political
context of policing and police organisational knowledge, provides a
sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of police culture.
Shearings rejection of normative accounts of culture finds some of its roots
in critiques of the conventional reform analysis by McBarnet eg 1981) and
Ericson eg 1981). They stressed the breadth of law as a resource, its crime
control commitment, and its role as retrospective legitimator of police action.
McBarnets work, in particular, had a major influence in shifting the focus of
policing studies. However, the limitations of this analysis have now to be
acknowledged. Her theory of law was never fully articulated, and remains an
underdeveloped combination of structuralism and radical realism which lent
itself to excessively deterministic conclusions Dixon, forthcoming chl). The
inherent problems are is exemplified in McConville, Sanders and Lengs The
Ca se f o r the Prosecution 1991). The controversy over interpretations of how
policing in England and Wales has been affected by legal regulation shows the
need for a more positive view of the role of law in policing, and consequently
for the prospects of using legal regulation s one of the tools of police reform
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Crime, Criminology and Public Policy
6
Dixon 1992).Shearings analysis is rather ambivalent here. He acknowledges
that new rules are important because changing the framework within which
action can be justified does shape action. This accords with the argument in
Policing
for
a
ew
South
Africa
in which Brogden and Shearing include legal
regulation of state policing
as
a significant part of their program for change in
South Africa 1993:114).However, he goes on to say that the framework of
rules does not directly instruct and that this must be done via the creation of
new stories. While it is clearly true to say that rules are not self-executing, it
seems to me to be too narrow to claim that their influence must be transmitted
through stories.
An additional contribution to our understanding of culture is Shearings
insistence on the link between Afrikaner culture and police culture in South
Africa. He begins here to deal with one of the crucial questions in
contemporary police studies: how do we distinguish and relate apparently
universal and specific aspects of policing? His account allows police culture
to be seen as being remarkably adaptable to contexts, and as being able to
express varying cultural messages. The practical significance of this is that it
shows the need to focus on local contexts of policing ts social, political,
economic environments.
This
has particular importance in Australia, where
police culture is often used loosely as a reference to all that is wrong in
policing. Shearings account emphasises the need to see police culture as an
expression or extension of a broader political or social culture. This arises
most directly in relation to corruption. Australian states such as Queensland
and New South Wales demonstrate the need to see police corruption as
intricately related to broader patterns and traditions of corruption. Similarly,
responses to other police misconduct must take account of social attitudes:
authoritarian pragmatism has constituted a serious obstacle to the reform
process in Queensland in the very material shape of juries and magistrates
refusing to convict police officers of palpable offences in dealing with real
criminals Bolen 1996). The implications for reform are clear enough:
attempts to tackle undesirable elements of police culture have little chance of
success if the contextual culture is undisturbed.
Conclusion
Shearings paper introduces several crucial developments in the contemporary
study of policing. Instead of the orthodox focus on England and America,
policing elsewhere in the world is taken seriously. It is considered not just as
the appropriately grateful recipient of gifts from North and West, but as a
source of inspiration and education see also Findlay Zvekic eds 1993).
Secondly, a radical challenge is made to the identification of policing with the
state: policing is seen as not just a concern of, but also an activity carried out
by civil society. Thirdly, police culture is rescued from its status as little more
than clich6, and is subjected to critique and development. Fourthly, a concern
to use and develop theory permeates the work. Fifthly, there is an exemplary
articulation of the proper relationship between academic work and political
action. In all these respects, Shearings work demonstrates what is currently
best in policing studies.
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66
1995)
The
Australian and
ew
Zealand Jou rnal of Criminology
References
Bolen, J
1996)
Prospects for sustained police reform Current Issues in
Criminal Justice
forthcoming.
Brogden, M Shearing, C
1993)
Policing for a New South Africa
Routledge, London.
Chan, J (
1996a)
Changing police culture, British Journal of Criminology
forthcoming.
Chan, J
1996b)
Changing Police Culture: Policing in a Multicultural Society
Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.
Dixon, D
1992)
Legal regulation policing practice, Social Legal
Studies vol 1, pp
51541.
Dixon, D forthcoming)
Law
in Policing: Legal Regulation and Police
Practices Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Dixon, D, Bottomley, AK Coleman, C A, Gill, M Wall, D
1989)
Reality
and rules in the construction and regulation of police suspicion,
International Journal o the Sociology o Law vol 17, pp 185-206.
Ericson, R 1981) Rules
f o r
police deviance, in C Shearing, ed
Organizational police Deviance Butterworths, Toronto, pp 83-1 10.
Findlay, M Zvekic, U, eds 1993) Alternative Policing Styles:
Cross-Cultural Perspectives Kluwer Publishers, Deventer, The
Netherlands.
Guelke, A
1995)
Policing and the South African miracle, Social and Legal
Studies vol
4,
pp
413-19.
Johnston, L
1992)
The Rebirth o Private Policing Routledge, London.
McBarnet, D 1981) Conviction Macmillan, London.
McConville, M, Sanders, A Leng, R 1991)
The Case f o r the Prosecution:
Police Suspects and the Construction of CriminaliQ Routledge, London.
Shearing, C D 1992) The relation between public and private policing, in
M
Tonry N Morris, eds
Modern Policing
University of Chicago Press,
Chicago,
399-434.
Shearing, C D Stenning, P
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From the panopticon to Disney World:
the development of discipline, in Perspectives in Criminal Law eds AN
Doob EL Greenspan, Canada Law Book, Toronto.
Shearing, C D Stenning, P, eds
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