Emergency or Not? Dealing with Borderline Cases in Emergency Police Calls

Abstract

ABSTRACT We examine occasions when callers phone emergency services yet preface their reason for calling as “not an emergency.” Data are phone calls to U.S. (911) and U.K. (999) emergency lines and U.K. (101) nonemergency police lines. Data were transcribed using Jefferson conventions and analyzed using conversation analysis. The “not an emergency” formulation is recurrently used to mark a shaky or borderline fit between the caller’s situation and the emergency category presumed by the dedicated phoneline. Typically, “not an emergency” formulations prefaced descriptions of a possible emergency in which the caller balances the justification for the call on the boundary of what counts as an emergency. Recurrent concerns for callers using “not an emergency” are to manage preemptive calls about impending potential emergency, and to disclaim responsibility for the decision to call an emergency service. Call takers offer callers latitude to present a complicated description of their circumstances instead of swiftly sanctioning them for an inappropriate call. Our article contributes to work on how the boundaries between categories are constructed and negotiated in interaction. Data are in British and American English.