English Police Force Research Articles

A place of safety? Self‐harming behaviour in police custody

The custody environment is not designed nor can it hope to meet the needs of individuals who are experiencing acute mental distress. The article reports the findings of analysis of the recorded incidents of self‐harm that occurred in the custody of one English police force during an eight‐month period in 2006. There were 168 such incidents in this period. The ratio of male/female detained persons, who harmed themselves was 3:1. The most common method used was a ligature either from the detained person's own clothes or the paper suits that are used in custody. Alcohol or substance misuse was identified as a clear risk factor. The police response is analysed and recommendations made for improved access to health care for those in custody.

Occupational Stress, Coping and Personality in the Police: An SEM Study

This article explores the relationships among exogenous factors, such as gender, age, rank/grade, tenure and personality, occupational stress, coping strategies, well-being, organisational commitment and job satisfaction. The sample used for this study comprised 1,535 police officers from a British police force, 20.78 per cent of whom were female. It was expected that personality, gender, age, rank and tenure were associated with ***work-related stress; coping; well-being, and work attitudes. More specifically, it was predicted: (1) that there was a correlation among personality, well-being and work attitudes; and (2) that coping strategies were directly associated with well-being and work attitudes. Using LISREL 8.54 these relationships were examined. The resulting model yielded meaningful and significant relationships and fitted the observed data: χ2 (114) = 291.88; p ≤ 0.01; RMSEA = 0.032; AGFI = 0.96; CFI = 0.99; n = 1510. Personality traits were found to be directly related to work-related stress, coping strategies, tension and burn out as well as negatively related to overall job satisfaction. Gender, age and rank did not show meaningful relationship with any of the endogenous variables. Occupational stressors were associated with low organisational commitment and poor overall job satisfaction. Also coping strategies were directly associated with organisational commitment and job satisfaction.

Tripping Over Molehills: Ethics and the Ethnography of Police Work

Ethnographies of policing have referred to the difficulties that researchers face as they encounter corruption, malpractice and police deviance. This paper reflects on the author’s ethnographical work with a British police force and suggests that while only relatively minor instances of misbehaviour were witnessed, these nonetheless raised challenging ethical issues. In addition to exploring the practicalities of negotiating access to the field and the difficulties of securing informed consent, the paper highlights the importance of anticipating the ethical dimensions of the mundane realities encountered during fieldwork.

Young driver accidents in the UK: The influence of age, experience, and time of day

Young drivers, especially males, have relatively more accidents than other drivers. Young driver accidents also have somewhat different characteristics to those of other drivers; they include single vehicle accidents involving loss of control; excess speed for conditions; accidents during darkness; accidents on single carriageway rural roads; and accidents while making cross-flow turns (i.e. turning right in the UK, equivalent to a left turn in the US and continental Europe). A sample of over 3000 accident cases was considered from midland British police forces, involving drivers aged 17–25 years, and covering a two year period. Four types of accident were analysed: right-turns; rear-end shunts; loss of control on curves; and accidents in darkness. Loss of control on curves and accidents in darkness were found to be a particular problem for younger drivers. It was found that cross-flow turn accidents showed the quickest improvement with increasing driver experience, whereas accidents occurring in darkness with no street lighting showed the slowest rate of improvement. ‘Time of day’ analyses suggested that the problems of accidents in darkness are not a matter of visibility, but a consequence of the way young drivers use the roads at night. There appears to be a large number of accidents associated with voluntary risk-taking behaviours of young drivers in ‘recreational’ driving.

Facial burns after exposure to CS spray

2-Chlorobenzylidene malononitrile (CS) was developed in 1928 by Corson and Stoughton. It replaced chloroacetophenone (CN) as riot control agent and self-defence spray in the late 1950s due to its increased potency but more importantly, less toxicity. It is the most widely used form of 'tear gas'. The British Police force have used it since its introduction in March 1996 and use a 'spray' containing 5% CS (w/v) in a solvent of methylisobutylketone (MIBK) with a nitrogen propellant. Advocates of its use claim, that if used correctly, the noxious effects are transient, and mainly manifest as lacrimation and irritation respiratory tract. Generally CS sprays appear to be safe if used in a controlled manner. We present a case of facial and upper body chemical burns resulting from the use of CS spray in the UK. The police restrained a 24-year-old man after a domestic disturbance in the early hours of the morning. CS was sprayed onto the face and upper body and then the man was handcuffed. After release from police custody, he presented himself to his local Accident and Emergency Department the following evening complaining of burns to his face and upper body as well as pain in the shoulders and wrists related to his arrest. CS is a white solid with a low vapour pressure that is released as an aerosol of fine particles or in solution. The microscopic particles act as potent sensory irritants, especially on moist skin and mucous membranes. It is an alkylating agent and reacts at nucleophilic sites. Although unclear, injuries related to this class of agents may be caused by the inactivation sulphhydryl-containing enzymes such as lactate dehydrogenase and coenzymes in the pyruvate decarboxylase system.4 Onset of symptoms usually occurs in the first minute after exposure with severe pain in the eyes and sensitive areas of the face. This is followed by lacrimation, visual disturbance, blephorospasm, rhinorrhoea, sneezing, coughing, retching, tightness in the chest and a burning sensation in the nose, throat and exposed skin. The severity of reaction depends upon the duration of exposure, concentration of the CS, moistness of the skin and whether the patient is in a restricted environment. The effects are usually temporary (reduced if in an 'open' environment) resolving in 30 min. Severe burns related to CS exposure have been attributed to flame burns from the explosion of gas-grenades, contact burns when hot canisters touched victims' bodies, burns related to the MIBK solvent which in itself is an ocular and skin irritant, and delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity reactions related to previous exposure.3 In this case report, the most likely cause is a combination of the CS and MIBK resulting in a chemical burn. The confined environment and perspiration associated with the domestic dispute sought to aggravate the physiological response. Following exposure to CS patients should be well aerated, and contaminated clothes removed. In the UK, blowing dry air from a hair dryer to force evaporation is the preferred method for facial exposure,5 while irrigation with normal saline to the rest of the body can be used.1 CS is known to have other serious toxic side effects such as miscarriage, hepatitis, pneumonitis and reactive airway dysfunction syndrome (recurrent cough and wheezing).2 Use of CS in a confined space is not advised due to the increased risk of severe toxic reaction.

Between a rock and a hard place: the dilemmas of managing part‐time working in the police service

PurposeTo study the effects of the introduction of part‐time working on managing a police force.Design/methodology/approachThis case study involved in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with part‐time officers in an English police force, their full‐time colleagues and managers.FindingsThe author illustrates practical problems which police managers face in ensuring they have staff in adequate numbers and experience to carry out the duties required of an organization which has to operate 24 hours‐a‐day, seven days‐a‐week and which has no way of knowing in advance what demands will be placed on it at any given time. The study focuses attention on the dilemma of legislation designed to improve the status of part‐time workers generally, and people's expectation of “family friendly” employment, with the traditional “command and control” needs of an organization such as a police force.Practical implicationsImplications for human resource management are identified, as the conflicting needs and views of manager and part‐time employees are explored. These conflicts are particularly difficult for HR to reconcile as part‐time and reduced‐hours working continues its expansion.Originality/valueProvides some useful information on part‐time working at a police station in the UK.

Communicating knowledge about police performance

This paper describes the organizational processes of knowledge acquisition, sharing, retention and utilisation as it affected the internal and external communication of knowledge about performance in an English police force. The research was gathered in three workshops for internal personnel, external stakeholders and chief officers, using Journey Making, a computer‐assisted method of developing shared understanding. The research concluded that there are multiple audiences for the communication of knowledge about police performance, impeded by the requirement to publish performance data. However, the intelligence‐led policing model could lead to a more focused means of communication with various stakeholder groups. Although technology investment was a preferred means of communicating knowledge about performance, without addressing cultural barriers, an investment in technology may not yield the appropriate changes in behaviour. Consequently, technology needs to be integrated with working practices in order to reduce organizational reliance on informal methods of communication.

Policing in South Africa

This article is a study of the introduction of local financial management (LFM) to South African policing. Four forms of institutional theory are used to interpret and understand this comparative study. The conclusion of this article is that the deliberate attempt to replicate the English experience in South Africa failed because of the different ideologies and value-laden beliefs that underlay the need for change and the different dynamics of power of the interest groups that were represented in the organizational structure. The taken-for-granted organizational processes that supported the implementation of LFM in English police forces impeded implementation in South Africa. A pluralistic model rather than a single institutional perspective is shown to be beneficial in understanding institutional impacts on organizations. In particular, different perspectives help in an understanding of how culturally derived norms of behaviour can be in tension with formal rules and how the formal structure must be adaptive to the environment and culture within which people cope with uncertainty by relying on established routines.

The use of Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 in a family of rural English police forces.

Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 is used by police officers to detain persons who they feel might be suffering with mental disorder until a formal Mental Health Act assessment can be undertaken. Previous studies have shown that the outcomes of these assessments result in remarkably different rates of subsequent hospital admissions. Within a rural setting it has also been shown that the rate of use of Section 136 varies considerably. This study examines the use of Section 136 within a family of eight police forces that have been matched to ensure that they cover similar populations. The results show that there are considerable variations in the use of Section 136, with the Devon and Cornwall region using the section over two and a half times the mean for the group. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.

Public Area Surveillance and Police Work: the impact of CCTV on police behaviour and autonomy

Drawing on a recent study of the impact of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras on policing practices in a large English police force, this paper considers whether the presence of surveillance cameras affects the working attitudes and behaviour of individual police officers. In particular, this paper asks whether CCTV makes the police more accountable or more cautious in the exercise of their discretion in public spaces. Although noting that in certain circumstances CCTV may inadvertently help to reduce incidences of police misconduct, this paper concludes by arguing that more needs to be done to prevent the police from interfering with the operation of CCTV and gaining unauthorised access to potentially incriminating video evidence.

Relinking Work and Leisure in Late Victorian and Edwardian England: The Emergence of a Police Subculture

Studies of the history of leisure have emphasized the separation between work and leisure which developed with the growth of industrial society. Only scant attention has been devoted by historians and sociologists of leisure to the continuing links between work and leisure throughout the nineteenth century, as reflected in recreational activities organized by employers for their employees. Such attention as has been paid to the subject has concentrated on industrial workers, largely ignoring the more systematic and extensive provision of leisure in work organizations belonging to the public sector. In an attempt to explore linkages between work and leisure in this emerging sector, the article focuses on the English police force and will address the following questions. What did the authorities aim to achieve in imposing control through leisure? How did the policemen react to such policies and was this strategy successful? What prompted the social and economic elite to become involved in moulding entertainment for police employees, and what was the impact of police leisure on the community at large?

The Distribution and Resolution of the Ambiguities of Technology, or Why Bobby Can't Spray

Much debate has taken place in science and technology studies (S&TS) regarding how to speak about the capacities of technology. Alternative approaches are bound up with questions over the merits of realist and relativist accounts of technology and their potential for analytical insight and practical engagement. This paper advances a basis for examining the link between politics and artefacts, one that draws on but reconfigures the work of post-essentialist authors. This is done by moving away from attempts to detail the social basis of technology to consider instead where the ambiguities associated with technology are resolved. These issues are examined through the case of a (re-)emerging class of devices called `non-lethal' weapons and, in particular, the chemical incapacitant spray used by British police forces. In doing so, this paper reframes debates in technology studies over how far it is possible and desirable to pursue relativist lines of inquiry.

Managerial factors and organisational commitment ‐ A comparative study of police officers and civilian staff

It is estimated that civilian employees comprise 30 per cent of the police workforce in England and Wales, yet their working experiences have largely been ignored in the management literature. This article aims to help fill this void by analysing the antecedents of organisational commitment of 369 civilian support employees and how they compare with those of 1,242 police officers working in a large English police force. The study reveals that how individuals feel they are managed and supported has a strong bearing on organisation commitment, and that this is true for two very different groups of employees – police officers and civilian support staff. The implications for HRM development are discussed. The article concludes by suggesting that the findings could be extrapolated to a wide range of other public sector organisations, since they provide insights into managerial practices that have an impact on commitment regardless of job type.

The Economic Evaluation of Policing Activity: An Application of a Hybrid Methodology

This paper advances a hybrid police cost function that synthesises the proactive/preventive and response/reactive methodologies from the criminology literature. The model presents a coherent estimation process that can help in the allocation of scarce resources to police forces and also enable economists, government organisations and criminologists to assess the scale and technical efficiency of forces. This hybrid model uses response survey data for a sample of English and Welsh police forces in which relative efficiency rankings are contrasted with relative performance measures produced by the Audit Commission. We find that there are considerable divergences in police force's scale and technical efficiency during 1997/98 and 1998/99 utilising non-parametric techniques.

Policing's Dark Secret: The Career Paths of Ethnic Minority Officers

The article responds to the Macpherson Inquiry into the police investigation of the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence by assessing the prospects for the recruitment and advancement of ethnic minority officers in British police forces. It notes the central importance under the common law of a police force which reflects the norms and standards of the community, and traces the relative impact on police/public relations of attempts to change police practice by policy and by statute. It highlights aspects of police culture which have obstructed the career advancement of both female and ethnic minority officers and compares the British experience with that in the U.S.A. A parallel is drawn between the ‘threshold’ analyses of the recruitment and advancement of female officers as a means to change the police organisation and the conditions under which ethnic minority officers could challenge racialism within the police. The article closes by considering the importance of career progression of those ethnic minority officers who have been recruited, and notes a puzzling lack of research into their career pathways.

Aoristic crime analysis

Crime pattern analysis has tended to focus on 'hotspot' analysis techniques; the identification of areas with higher densities of criminal activity. This paper documents a different approach to determination of hotspots and aims to present a conceptual framework for the temporal analysis of aoristic crime data. This analysis monitors the change in crime patterns over time and can be applied to arbitrary areas, especially those smaller than police beat boundaries, which have been traditionally the smallest resolution areal unit studied within most British police forces. It also clarifies examination of lower crime areas, which can be overlooked in other forms of analysis. Crime data often lacks temporal definition and three different methods of temporal search technique are compared. Results from a new aoristic approach highlight a weekly Monday peak in motor vehicle crime on one division of Nottinghamshire Constabulary. In another example a historically weighted temporal model helps identify rising or falling crime rates.

‘My only weapon being a pencil’: Inscribing the prison in the New Hebrides

The process of producing British prisons and prisoners in the colonial New Hebrides is the subject of this paper. Under the Anglo‐French Condominium, British and French police forces theoretically were divisions of a single armed constabulary; yet each operated separately in practice. Prison labour became essential to a spatial order that the British feared they could not otherwise achieve. The paper begins with the account of a colonial officer, armed with only a pencil, arresting a murderer in 1907. It then examines an archival debate about allowing some prisoners to live in grass houses, and ends with analysis of interviews with retired colonial officers, their wives and children about attitudes toward prisoners. The conclusion is that islanders, for their own reasons, were complicit with the British project of creating stereotypically ‘docile axe murderers'; the British, therefore, were right to be concerned about what the natives thought and, occasionally, to be afraid.

ASPECTS OF DISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT OF WOMEN POLICE OFFICERS SERVING IN FORCES IN ENGLAND AND WALES

Discriminatory treatment is defined in terms of limited job related opportunities and exposure to sexual harassment. The structural status of women police in England and Wales in terms of rank and role is described by reference to secondary analysis of national data from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. This reveals limited access of women officers to higher rank and specialist roles. Differential deployment and sexual harassment are explored by means of a questionnaire survey conducted in several British police forces. Results indicate widespread exposure to harassment and other forms of discriminatory treatment. The persistence of discrimination is demonstrated by reference to recent surveys by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and policemen's resistance to women colleagues is discussed in terms ofoccupational culture. Some elaboration of the sex-role spillover thesis is offered in the light of policewomen's experiences.

Drug Prevention and the Police in the UK: A review of recent research studies

There is increasing concern among British police forces about their role in drug prevention in schools. This paper reviews drug prevention research in the US, Australia and the UK in order to compare and contrast prevention policy and practice within schools internationally and to consider which approach would be most effective and appropriate for the UK. The paper focuses on prevention rather than education because of the current emphasis on prevention in British policy. The paper raises questions that need careful consideration before drug prevention policies are introduced in the UK. First, there is a need to determine whether schools should be concerned predominantly with programmes of drug prevention or harm minimisation, as it is in the disciission of these concepts that the reasons (and aims) for any programme will be articulated. It is then necessay to identify the most effective programme content and most appropriate providers, and to gather information regarding target audiences. The early indications from research findings are that general interactive skills-based programmes are more useful than the more directive and didactic police-led initiatives; that these should be integrated within the established school curriculum and that trained teachers may therefore be the most appropriate professionals to take the lead. However there is international consensus concerning the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach, emphasising the partnership between teachers, police and parents and stressing the importance of community involvement in the development of any school-based programme. The limitations of present research are identified; there are constraints on evaliratiori and there are few of the longitudinal studies necessary for measuring change over time. It has been difficult to distinguish between the effects of police input and the police programmes themselves. Although evaluative studies identify increases in knowledge, they have riot yet demonstrated any significant immediate, or long term, changes in either attitudes or behaviour.

Can performance-related pay be adapted for nursing?

Relating pay to performance is a way of rewarding someone for doing good work. The British police force has recently been upset over the possible introduction of performance-related pay. Could the same thing happen in nursing?