Police Culture Research Articles

The Production of “Indisputable” Confession Evidence in China

ABSTRACT Police interrogation, as a means of criminal investigation, is based on discursive interactions and serves the purpose of truth-seeking and information gathering. In China’s criminal justice system, many police officers believe that confessions are more persuasive than other forms of incriminating evidence and can help increase the success rate of criminal prosecutions. As such, when interviewing suspects, officers do not always seek information but rather aim to obtain confessions. Using transcripts from police interrogations as data, this research examines the accusatorial interrogation model in China. It focuses on language to explore the dynamics of power in police interrogations and police culture in China.

Attitudes of Newly Recruited Icelandic Police Students Towards Diversity

Scholars have described prejudice towards various minority groups as one of the negative characteristics of police culture. Visible prejudice within the police has serious consequences for trust and legitimacy, thus reducing the willingness of the public to cooperate with them. However, little is known about the attitudes of police students towards police work in a diverse society in the Nordic context. This paper focuses on newly recruited police students in the Icelandic police university program. Police students’ attitudes towards diversity are analyzed in the context of various possible work-related scenarios. The study is based on a survey of all newly recruited police students in Iceland, conducted yearly from 2018 until 2023. The findings indicate that police students are generally positive towards at least certain types of diversity measures in policing, although support for diversity has declined slightly in the most recent year.

Social embeddedness and organisational justice in a UK police force

Purpose The purpose of this study is to describe police officers’ workplace social networks and to examine how police officers’ social ties, in combination with organisational climate, affect their attitudes towards and willingness to report misconduct.Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered from a vignette survey of 86 response police officers in an English county police force. Officers’ attitudes towards misconduct and likelihood of reporting were analysed using multivariable regression models.Findings Descriptively, most officers have a small social network within the force, and police comprise about one-third of their total social networks. Officers were generally highly disapproving of misconduct and expressed they would challenge their peers in most scenarios, though reporting misconduct was somewhat less likely. Perceived peer disapproval of misconduct is a strong predictor of officers’ disapproval of misconduct and expressed likelihood of reporting misconduct. Organisational justice and social embeddedness were not usually associated with the challenging and reporting of misconduct.Originality/value This study is one of only a handful to report information on police officers’ friendship networks in the workplace, and these results show that peer influence remains an important vector for police management to use in promoting prosocial police culture and preventing misconduct.

Postsocialism as a Crime

Abstract The decade of the 1990s has become a significant topic of cultural memory in postsocialist countries, including the Czech Republic. One of the most pervasive interpretive frames of this period of recent history, present across various media, is that of “crime.” This article argues that such a framing is supported by the police, an institution with considerable power to shape shared notions about the recent past. The interpretation of the first postsocialist decade as criminal in nature is demonstrated through the example of the Czech true-crime tv series Devadesátky (The Nineties, 2022). The Nineties is analyzed using three key concepts. “Plurimedial networks” help explain how the series became a powerful medium of memory. “Police memorialization” is used to show how the memory of postsocialism is constructed through the motif of crime from the perspective of the police and what its political implications are. “Police culture” provides a source for a critical reflection on police memory, revealing vested interests behind particular narrative representations of reality-based past events such as those depicted in The Nineties.

Evidence-Based Policing as a Foundational Policing Model for the INP

In the midst of various challenges of policing and its consequences on public trust, a number of studies have examined the duties of the Police, especially the Republic of Indonesia National Police (INP), in maintaining security and public order, enforcing the law, protecting the public, and serving the community. Several contemporary policing models, such as Community Policing or Problem-Oriented Policing, have been suggested and implemented by the INP, although the parameters of its successful implementation continue to be a questionable issue. This article discusses how the concept of Evidence-Based Policing (EBP) – a new paradigm in policing – can better serve as a foundation for the Police in dealing with societal and criminal issues. EBP emphasises scientific and evidence-based decision-making, enabling officers to avoid the biases that are frequently criticised in policing practices. By utilising literature review and document analysis methods, this article examines existing policing models and demonstrates the importance of evidence-based approaches in improving INP performance. It also highlights the importance of consulting and collaborating with pracademics and international institutions that have successfully implemented EBP, in order to increase the accountability and responsibility of the INP in implementing EBP. The implementation of EBP is expected to lead to positive changes in policing culture – providing more effective and comprehensive solutions based on data and scientific studies to address crime and social problems in the community.

Researching Behind the Badge: Challenges and Politics for Emerging Scholars in Police Studies

This study aims to find that the organizational structure and culture of the police have a significant impact particularly in terms of facilitating access, ensuring research independence, and developing long-term relationships. Police research has enabled the integration of grounded theoretical findings with the practical application of police strategies. However, scholars in police studies, especially those new to research, often face intricate dynamics and limitations, particularly concerning police culture and organizational obstacles. This paper seeks to examine the challenges and political barriers that new researchers have when studying the police. Employing an empirical qualitative approach, this study combines semi-structured interviews with six researchers who have different levels of expertise in police research. Additionally, auto-ethnographic reflections offer a thorough understanding of the subject matter. The research findings suggest that the organizational structure and culture of the police have a significant impact on research, particularly in terms of facilitating access, ensuring research independence, and developing long-lasting connections. We conclude by proposing that establishing an effective research collaboration with the police necessitates finding a balance between the interests of academics and the police institution. To achieve this, we advocate implementing mentorship programs that pair experienced researchers with junior researchers and create collaborative infrastructure to help new scholars.

“You can't really turn it off”: The police “sixth sense” as cultural schema

AbstractA variety of concepts in the policing literature denote a so‐called “sixth sense” that police officers claim to possess. “Intuition,” “suspicion,” or “common sense” all specify a tacit knowledge said to heighten an officer's sensitivity to danger and potential suspects. This paper argues this type of knowledge exemplifies the application of “cultural schema” (DiMaggio, 1997): a shared knowledge structure that allows people to respond to environmental stimuli in ways that render their lives more predictable. We combine two case studies—one in Canada, the other in the Netherlands—which include ethnographic field notes and 199 interviews with police officers, to reconsider the police sixth sense in light of theoretical and empirical advances in cultural sociology and cognition research. This paper further discusses the benefit of studying this sixth sense itself as a form of cultural knowledge—that is, as “police culture”—to improve our understanding of cultural resources most or least compatible with emerging police reforms.

Book Review: Disassembling Police Culture by Mike Rowe

Book Review: <i>Disassembling Police Culture</i> by Mike Rowe

Towards a suicide-responsive police culture: police experiences of working with suicide

ABSTRACT Across the globe suicide rates are creating concern, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) argues that suicide is the responsibility of everyone. The WHO recognises that police have an important role in suicide prevention and the management of mental health crises. We suggest that police officers and staff are inevitably impacted by the emotional labour of meeting the demands of this aspect of the role. We argue for more research attention on the experiences and views of police who work with suicide. This study comprised qualitative reflective interviews with police in the UK, Guyana and New Zealand, with the focus on identifying commonalities in experience across the three locations. Four themes were generated through reflective thematic analysis: (1) the context; (2) the traumatic impact; (3) the difficult aspects of this work and (4) organisational opportunities for supporting police officers and staff. Our data illustrated that suicide is qualitatively different from other forms of death, and the nature of the work did have considerable emotional and traumatic impact on police. We conclude our paper with several recommendations for police forces to build their welfare support for staff. These recommendations could help promote a healthier workforce and recognise the specific issues associated with this part of the role.

Scrutiny of Police Institutions and the Spectre of Culture

AbstractThis article revisits the concept of police culture and its explanatory value in understanding the recent scandals that have rocked policing in England and Wales. It focusses on concerns around the prevalence of sexism and violence against women and girls (VAWG) within policing and explores whether an increase in the diversity of police officers has pushed aspects of police culture into specific specialist and less visible areas of policing. The article suggests that any attempts at substantive police reform need to consider radical organisational and structural change, including a new narrative for British policing. Such a narrative needs political and social support and will require wider engagement beyond internally focussed police discussions.

Nonpossessive caring during the two pandemics

AbstractIn this manuscript, a new theoretical model is applied to analyze the effects of the early 2020s’ dual pandemics: the coronavirus and anti‐Black racial violence pandemics. Grounded in humanistic–existential principles, the nonpossessive caring model emphasizes relational structures, relational caring, and relational nonpossession. The model is applied to the coronavirus pandemic's challenges, such as balancing disease mitigation and the interpersonal control. Through the lens of relational structures, the anti‐Black racial violence pandemic is analyzed, examining privilege and oppression's role in shaping police–community dynamics. Nonpossessive caring principles are relevant in policing, supporting Black community members’ experiences, fostering police cultures of directed attention, cultivating curiosity, and valuing community input. This manuscript contributes to existential and humanistic counseling by addressing autonomy and responsibility tensions, offering guidance on existential responsibility amid mandates, and emphasizing marginalized communities’ subjective experiences.

Clearance rates, arrest rates, and racial stratification: A time series analysis, 1965–2020

ABSTRACT Guided by the etiology of crime and policing literatures, this report presents the exploratory hypothesis that the overemphasis placed upon crime clearance rates as a measure of law enforcement efficiency/effectiveness may help account for longstanding racial disparities in the risk of arrest in the US. In the context of an increasingly quantitative fixation on measurable outputs within policing administration, it is argued that the oversurveillance, contact, and ultimate arrest of racial minorities, through discretionary proactive policing activities, has become embedded in the (sub)culture of policing to illustrate that something is being done about unsolved crime. In assessing this hypothesis, national-level, advanced time series models were estimated from 1965 to 2020 (N = 54), with results indicating that year-to-year increases in the lagged percentages of unsolved criminal offenses were significantly associated with year-to-year increases (decreases) in arrest rates for Black (White) people in the US – net of prior theoretically relevant macro-structural correlates of crime. The reported analyses represent a meaningful first attempt in assessing the validity of the hypothesized relationship between crime clearance percentages and trends in Black and White arrest rates – opening the door for a new line of inquiry within an already important field of stratification and crime.

‘Valuable Lives to Save’ vs. ‘Babysitting These People While They Try to Kill Themselves’: Changing Police Attitudes Towards Safe Consumption Sites

Abstract North American police responses to the ‘drug issue’ have long been shaped by a crime control rather than a harm reduction imperative. Consequently, police officers’ responses to safe consumption sites (SCSs), where people who use illicit drugs can reduce personal health risks by administering previously obtained drugs in the presence of trained staff, were initially hostile. This paper draws on interview data from police officers in two western Canadian cities to highlight an apparent softening in attitudes, perhaps due to the current fentanyl-driven drug poisoning crisis. While some officers clearly recognized their public health benefits, others accepted SCSs, acknowledging the futility of a continued ‘war on drugs’. Some voiced reservations about SCSs, but not because of a generic ‘drugs are bad’ sentiment. Rather, they worried about specific downstream implications for communities and police work. These findings, reflecting apparent changes in police officers’ responses to SCSs, are discussed in the context of contemporary debates about police culture and the possibilities and desirability of pursuing police reform.

‘Me, us, and Them’: Policing and the Dynamics of Identity Work

The study of identity work has grown exponentially in the past decade; however, little research has been undertaken in challenging occupational contexts, such as policing. Existing studies have focused on tensions between personal and work identities, such as being a woman in a male-dominated workplace, or how officers have responded to threats to their occupational identities. Using data collected from interviews with 32 Canadian police officers, this study examines the circumstances that compel officers to engage in identity work and the processes undertaken to alleviate these identity conflicts or threats. The findings illustrate that police officer identity work is prompted by four primary triggers, defined as: (1) identity strain; (2) work-identity stigma; (3) identity maturation; and (4) organizational indifference. The findings also suggest that these triggers are influenced by police culture and the related socialization processes that continue to emphasize traditional masculine attributes (e.g., aggression, physical strength and toughness).

SELF-EFFICACY, RELIGIOSITY, AND ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR IN POLICE HUMAN RESOURCES BUREAU

The police are part of the government. Therefore, in the context of bureaucratic forms in the police environment, efforts to organize and improve the welfare of police officers are very fundamental considering that they are closely related to the mission of changing police culture. necessary needs. Power (reform of the cultural sphere). It is hoped that the new salary system will provide maximum prevention against material temptation and seduction (collusion) from all members of the National Police. But in reality there is. This research uses variance-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques or better known as SEM PLS (Partial Least Square) and is assisted by SMART PLS 2.0.M3 software. 6. Self efficacy, organizational commitment to organizational citizenship behavior: Path coefficient = 3.609 &gt; T-Table = 1.982, meaning that the moderator variable (organizational commitment) moderates the influence of an endogenous variable (self efficacy) on the exogenous variable (Organizational citizenship behavior). Religiosity, Organizational Commitment to Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Path coefficient = 1.887 &gt; T-Table = 1.982, meaning that the moderator variable (Organizational Commitment) moderates the influence of an endogenous variable (Religiosity) on the exogenous variable (Organizational Citizenship Behavior).

Active shooter incidents: training, safety, culture and officers’ support for prioritizing victims’ lives above their own

PurposeActive shooter incidents have risen considerably in recent years, elevating public and law enforcement focus on improving response to these incidents. The contemporary policy for reacting to an active shooter event is for the officers who first arrive on the scene to move quickly to engage and neutralize a shooter, prioritizing victim safety and minimizing loss of life. This study provides a preliminary understanding of the police view regarding their role in active shooter events and their experiences with active shooter training.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted a survey of 413 sworn personnel across three US cities. Analyses examine differences in officers’ training experiences across the agencies and predictors of a sense of duty to prioritize victims’ lives over that of officers.FindingsOfficers’ training experiences differed by agency, yet most officers supported a duty to sacrifice their lives to prioritize victims’ safety during active shooter incidents. Officers with more years of experience have lower odds of supporting a duty to sacrifice their lives to save victims during an active shooter situation relative to less experienced officers. Respondents who recall officer safety among the top three most memorable topics from their recent active shooter training also have lower odds of supporting a duty to sacrifice.Originality/valueThe authors add knowledge about police officers’ experiences with active shooter training and officers’ opinions about their role in responding to active shooter incidents. We discuss implications of the findings relative to police culture and training and suggest directions for future research.

The final frontier: police culture for women in men’s spaces

PurposeThis study explores how police culture is experienced by women officers serving in positions where they are significantly underrepresented (i.e. leadership and elite specialty units) and the environmental factors that shape these experiences.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative analysis of transcripts from interviews with 71 women serving in male-dominated roles was conducted (N = 39 ranking women; N = 32 women on elite units).FindingsParticipants described five occupational, organizational and assignment-level factors that shaped their workplace experiences. While some contextual forces at play are similar for women working patrol (e.g. traditional police culture, the underrepresentation of women in law enforcement) unique position-level factors were also identified (e.g. the high-risk and consequential nature of the work).Practical implicationsWhile the cultural environment for women patrol officers has improved in the past few decades, the same cannot be said for women working in positions that are still dominated by men. More attention to this area of policing is needed to ensure gender diversity is achieved throughout organizations and not only in positions deemed suitable for women.Originality/valueThe study extends research on women in policing beyond the focus on patrol. Further, it explores the assignment- and rank-based perspectives of police culture, which are largely absent from the literature.

Police whistleblowing: A systematic review of the likelihood (and the barriers and facilitators) of the willingness of police officers to report the misconduct of fellow officers

IntroductionRecent high-profile cases of police misconduct have revealed that officers were often aware of misconduct, but remained silent, compromising public trust in law enforcement. Here, we systematically review ‘police whistleblowing’ literature to identify barriers and facilitators to officers challenging misconduct. MethodologyEmploying PRISMA guidelines, we systematically reviewed 118 relevant papers, extracting data and coding key variables including who the ‘target’ of the research was; whether reporting practices were studied, and whether practical solutions were offered. A reflexive thematic analysis then assessed consensus among researchers within the literature. ResultsFive themes - 1) knowledge and rules, 2) consequences, 3) interpersonal relations, 4) responsibility, and 5) police culture and group relations – emerged as barriers and facilitators to whistleblowing. The review revealed relatively poorer representation of internal police reporting structures and limited practical solutions, with only 40 papers proposing strategies, predominantly centred on training and education. DiscussionThis review highlights methodological limitations in existing research, with an overreliance on survey methods and a dominant focus on the characteristics of individuals over the structural constraints of reporting. The positive impacts of whistleblowing on policing as an institution and the development of practical strategies to overcome officers' reluctance to report misconduct remain largely unexplored.

A Dual Enrollment Police Academy with Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice: The Student Officers’ Experiences

Despite the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015), the U.S. lacks collaborative innovations in police training between law enforcement and higher education. In this article, we describe the experiences of students in the pilot cohort of a unique program, which combines a Master of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice degree with a full-time police academy. We employed focus groups at the beginning and end of the program to understand the students’ perceptions. The focus groups revealed that the program overall was received positively by the students, and it met their expectations. Our results describe the program’s strengths and challenges as well as the students’ perceived learning outcomes. The findings illustrate that a dual enrollment academy program is feasible for students to complete, but also provide insight into the academy environment including the unique challenges for female students and the process of socialization into police culture.

An ethnographic study of police culture in a rural Kansas police agency

PurposeThe study examined rural police culture in one Kansas police agency.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a qualitative ethnographic approach using in-depth interviews and non-participant observations to construct and interpret the culture of rural police through the lens of officers working in one rural police agency.FindingsFive themes were found that described the complexities rural police officers face at this research site, including the law being at the center of officers’ actions, the nature of crime, officers serving as jack of all trades, community relationships and enforcement of crimes by teenagers, and how outside pressures from the community and increased concern for citizens' safety affect officers' daily lived experiences.Originality/valueThere is a dearth of scholarly literature addressing rural and small-town policing. This study is the first known qualitative study to be conducted on rural Kansas police, allowing a snapshot of the workings of rural Kansas police.