The ‘haves and have-nots’ of social support during police recruitment: why the playing field is anything but level

Abstract

ABSTRACT Current police recruitment research is often focused on disproportionate outcomes based upon identity-based categories such as race, ethnicity, or gender. National government statistics and political discourse support this research agenda, indicating a significant recruitment gap in representation in England and Wales. This gap has resulted in the design and use of ‘in-house’ positive action initiatives for police recruitment, with little examination of their impact or otherwise. To understand this research gap, this paper applies a labour market lens to police recruitment. This study contributes to existing research by exploring how police recruits navigate the recruitment process using their social resources. It represents 27 in-depth, participant-led, long-form interviews within an English Constabulary, informed by the theory of Social Embeddedness. It explores how candidates who did not receive positive action navigated and perceived their recruitment process, whilst using their friends, family, and acquaintances for both instrumental and pastoral support. This is contrasted against those candidates that utilised positive action initiatives. The results illustrate developed social embeddedness within police recruitment in the researched constabulary. Recruits who drew heavily upon social contacts experienced instrumental and pastoral support throughout the recruitment process. Some stages of recruitment were more socially embedded than others, resulting in some specific, instrumental advantages. The nature of this social support evidences how disproportionality can be generated in police recruitment. Candidates using positive action initiatives experienced negative, pastoral social support, and temporal instrumental support – illuminating a very different journey during their presocialisation into policing. This finding underpins evidentially informed positive action interventions.