Blowing the Whistle on Police Violence. Gender, Ethnography and Ethics

Abstract

This article highlights a number of issues related to the witnessing of ‘illegal’ police violence by researchers. Empirical evidence is drawn from fieldwork conducted for a larger study of police culture, which is the first examination of gender relations in the British police. This extensive ethnographic study is used to highlight the way fieldwork can lead to a number of ethically ambiguous situations. Whether to ‘blow the whistle’, to express disapproval, report to senior officers or some other authority on viewing violence or ‘ excessive force’ is analysed. A number of scenarios are described which are used to reflect upon the personal ethical stance that often has to be used to resolve such issues. It might be asked whether there is any point in spending long hours conducting a police ethnography for any reason other than to blow the whistle on their indiscretions. As this type of research may involve encounters with violence, however, it raises certain ethical, practical and theoretical problems. In this article the dilemmas faced by field workers when they witness deviance in the form of violent acts are discussed. Indeed, although being present when something ‘illegal’ occurs is a fairly universal problem for participant observation studies, at the beginning of a project ethnographers rarely have an instruction manual which goes further than the general methodological issues such as those raised by Ferrell and Hamm (1998), King and Wincup (2000) or Wolcott (1999). In texts such as these, numerous aspects of observational research are described, the ethical ambiguities of fieldwork are raised, but few practical resolutions are suggested. In this article two categories of dilemma facing ethnographers who may encounter violent acts will be examined. First, the difficulty of actually identifying the phenomenon, so that during observations in the field, violence can be differentiated from legitimate force. In ‘real life’ research situations this is more problematic than it might seem, as Gilligan argues (2000: 91), ‘there is a consensus that we lack a theory of violence adequate to enable us to explain, predict and prevent violent behaviour.’ A second difficulty discussed in this article is what the fieldworker might do when violence is identified as having happened. In effect, how difficult decisions can be made despite the ‘physical and bodily, as well as intellectual and methodological’ immersion in the research site (Coffey 1999: 70). These two points will be discussed here within a framework which acknowledges the effects of police occupational culture, the nature of group solidarity it fosters and the ‘hazards faced by whistleblowers’ such as the ‘cold shoulder treatment’ (Chan 1996: 121).