Disembodied police practice: “Keep a lid on it so you can function”

Abstract

This paper explores disembodiment and policing in an Australian police jurisdiction – we call ‘Conundrum ’. This narrative research on police education uncovers the tensions and disembodied practices of police and the daily dilemmas that police experience working in the new era of professional policing. Police officers’ educational experiences are at odds with contemporary notions and practices of lifelong learning, workplace learning and reflexive practice. This research draws attention to the inherent difficulty that police face today as they learn to ‘manage their emotions’ in response to different forms of risk, uncertainty and instability, underscored by the longstanding ‘habitus’ in the ‘field’ of policing. This emotional work impacts on police identity and is a cost to the ‘self’ as police increasingly disconnect from their work, their colleagues and themselves. We argue that an urgent review of police education and training in Australia is needed to move from the practice-based reproduction of cultural and applied learning traditions to a more holistic education program that focuses on metacognition, reflexive practice and critical cognition.