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Policing and accountability: The working of police authorities
Policing and Society
Abstract
In recent times policing has attracted a good deal of controversy, such as the paramilitary tactics employed at demonstrations, the use of stop and search powers under the Terrorism Act 2000, and the manner in which police officers are deployed on day-to-day duties. This paper outlines the role and potential of police authorities to influence police policy and operations and also highlights the need to seek greater citizen participation in holding the police to account. The major part of the paper draws on ground-breaking research on police authorities using questionnaire and in-depth interview data to outline just how it is that police authority members approach their duties.
... According to Heriyanto (2023), holding the police force accountable can strengthen public trust in law enforcement and improve community relationships. Since police officers have substantial power and discretion in their daily work and decision-making (Feys et al., 2018), ensuring accountability becomes even more critical because their actions can have far-reaching consequences (Millen & Stephens, 2011). Police officers must answer for specific (mis)behaviour during either a misconduct inquiry or their daily actions (not necessarily for misbehaviour) (Feys et al., 2018). ...
Public cooperation with the police is crucial because the public acts as the eyes and ears of the police. Moreover, research on public cooperation with the police, including crime-reporting behaviours and willingness to cooperate with law enforcement agencies, remains scarce in post-conflict countries like Somalia. Therefore, this study investigates the roles of perceived police accountability and effectiveness in fostering public cooperation with the police in Somalia via the underlying mechanisms of public trust in the police. Data were collected from a sample of 470 respondents in Mogadishu, Somalia. The analysis employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the proposed model. The study found that police accountability has indirectly and positively impacted public cooperation via public trust in police. Moreover, public trust in police positively and significantly impacts public cooperation with the police. The findings also revealed that police effectiveness, directly and indirectly, impacts public cooperation with the police.
... Yet, police authorities are considered to be the 'architects of their own decline' (Jones and Newburn, 1997), due to being bureaucratic, out-oftouch, and either inept or too fearful to challenge their chiefs (Morgan and Swift, 1987;Jones et al., 1994;Millen and Stephens, 2011;Caless and Tong, 2013). Arguably, much of this criticism is unfair because they had a constitutionally marginalized position. ...
This paper reviews the challenges that directly-elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) face in reforming controversial police tactics that are favoured by chief constables, but generate significant concerns among the electorate. Focusing on reforms to police-initiated stops, namely ‘stop and account’ and ‘stop and search’, the results suggest PCCs tend to achieve incremental changes, at best, as they struggle to overcome resistance from their chief constables and the legal constraints of ‘operational independence’. The results have significant implications because it suggests PCCs are not as powerful as has been assumed. However, PCCs can enhance the prospects of reform and better navigate resistance by exercising their rarely used soft powers, such as commissioning national regulatory bodies to review areas of concern or appealing to their local Police and Crime Panel for support in scrutiny. The results of this study are based on interviews with PCCs and chief constables, their deputies and assistants, local campaign groups and staff from national regulatory bodies, as well as participant observations across several police forces.
... To Noordegraaf (2006), these responses are common in the post-NPM landscape and effectively convey that organizations have a full understanding of the new social conditions within which they find themselves. Whilst, the old tripartite system (see Millen and Stephens, 2011) under which the police of England and Wales used to operate recognized (in terms of its structure) the responsibility to both the state and to the public, it can be argued that scrutiny brought to bear from both sides has increased and intensified as the processes of late modernity have taken hold. Neoliberalism is intrinsically linked to late modernity (see, for example, Ayers, 2005;Dawson, 2013) and has led to a reduction in police budgets in England and Wales via austerity programmes (see Lumsden and Black, 2017). ...
Recent work on policing has increasingly acknowledged the influence of a broad array of changes upon both the structure and culture of police organizations. Generally, however, literature and research have tended to focus attention onto those elements of the broader police environment that effect such developments, whereas little commentary, to date, has been directed towards those features which impact across the broader public sector. Through drawing on the concepts of ‘hybrid professionalism’ [Noordegraaf M (2015) Hybrid professionalism and beyond: (new) forms of public professionalism in changing organizational and societal contexts. Journal of Professions and Organization 2: 187–206] and ‘institutional isomorphism’ [DiMaggio PJ and Powell WW (1983) The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48: 147–160], this conceptual paper will argue that the impact of neoliberal ideology on the contemporary public sector has created a police organization for which professionalism increasingly denotes generic management skills that are common across different occupations and different police roles. In particular, it will be suggested that such institutional isomorphism may drive ideational responses commensurate with cultural change within police organizations. In short, therefore, the paper will make the case that, in parallel with changes already identified by other academics, broader structural changes may lead to a narrower and more generic set of cultural responses within contemporary police organizations.
... And why did it have a particular shape? It formulates the theory-driven hypotheses (della Porta, Reiter, 1998, p. 21;Whelan, 2017;Millen, Stephens, 2011) that the Slovenian model of protest policing most likely is between the antinomic ideal types of escalated force and negotiated management close to the latter. Additionally, its shape might derive from the organizational dynamics of the Slovenian National Police which typifies with the dialectic of decentralization and hierarchical submission in police units, the effectively used possibilities to coordinate the different groups operating within protesting crowds, and certainty about the aims of the intervention (della Porta, Reiter, 1998, p. 21). ...
Celem artykułu jest ocena polityki kontroli protestu w Słowenii w okresie wychodzenia z kryzysu ekonomicznego oraz weryfikacja analitycznej efektywności narzędzia do pomiaru kontroli protestu. Tekst prezentuje krytyczną dyskusję nad modelem teoretycznym składającym się z antynomicznych typów idealnych eskalowanej siły i negocjowanego kierowania autorstwa Donatelli della Porty i Herberta Reitera. Następnie, wykorzystuje je w roli narzędzia do zanalizowania słoweńskiego przypadku. W badaniu zastosowano jakościową metodę analizy źródeł opartą na konceptualnej jakościowej analizie zawartości, żeby rozwiązać następujące problemy badawcze: jaki model kontroli protestu wystąpił w Słowenii w okresie implementacji polityki surowości? I dlaczego kontrola przybrała taką formę? Studium pokazuje, że w Słowenii pojawił się model negocjowanego kierowania z elementami eskalowanej siły. Ten typ kontroli protestu wynikał z organizacyjnej dynamiki Słoweńskiej Policji Narodowej, która odznacza się dialektyką decentralizacji i hierarchicznego podporządkowania w oddziałach policji, efektywnym wykorzystywaniem możliwości koordynacji różnych grup działających w obrębie protestujących tłumów oraz pewnością co do celów interwencji
The method and results of a scoping review, based on the principles of a systematic literature review, on police accountability are presented with the aim of providing an overview of the characteristics of empirical research on the topic and the main themes covered in this research tradition. To our knowledge, no systematically conducted review has been undertaken although one could help to identify gaps in the (empirical) literature and give insights into the themes studied in this regard. Three main themes were discovered during the review; aside from police accountability as such, many studies related to police integrity or, to a lesser extent, historical facts concerning police accountability or integrity. Two of the most striking findings were the low number of empirical studies included in our thematic synthesis and the limited amount of methodological information reported in these publications. As such, the authors recommend more empirical research regarding police accountability and, more generally, sufficient methodological reporting when writing a publication.
The introduction of police and crime commissioners (PCC) in England and Wales has reignited discussions about police governance. This paper contributes to these debates by focusing on the role liberal values play within liberal democratic ideals of policing. It suggests, policing principles historically have been informed primarily by liberal goals; that is to say these principles are liberal before they are democratic. Policing in England and Wales today, however, is increasingly informed by democratic values at the expense of liberal principles. The spectre of illiberal democracy is considered here as a warning in light of this development. The paper argues that there is a growing disparity between the rhetoric of liberal policing principles, historically rooted in pre-democratic times, and the reality of contemporary policing in societies that are increasingly sensitive to democratic expectations. Police independence is used to illustrate this argument. Police independence is still revered in rhetoric today, but the liberal origin of this concept is not recognised. But the idea that the police should retain a degree of freedom from political interference makes sense from a liberal perspective, one that is increasingly difficult to defend as liberal values decline in importance, and democratic aspirations come to the fore. The paper concludes by suggesting that liberal values are, on the one hand, increasingly difficult to accommodate within contemporary ideas of policing, but are at the same time becoming more necessary, especially following the introduction of PCCs.
This article considers the current decision of the Home Secretary to scrap the 43 police forces and replace them with 12–15 regional strategic police forces. This follows on from the recent report of HMIC, entitled Closing the Gap, published in September 2005, which was to conclude that as currently constituted the police structure for England and Wales was no longer ‘fit for purpose’. Using the ability of police services to provide an effective response to NIM Level 2 crime as a yardstick, HMIC was to find that any force with fewer than 4,000 police officers would be unlikely to be able to provide an adequate response.
One consequence of the report and the Home Secretary's response to it has been the request made to all police authorities and forces to present a business case to the Home Office by the end of 2005 identifying the future structure of policing in the region and the pattern of amalgamation they might favour. In the course of this exercise it was to be found that alternatives to amalgamation, collaboration and federation, had both been closed down by the Home Secretary, who has concluded that only the option of amalgamation was now acceptable to his department.
Subsequently it was to be learned that a number of factors influencing HMIC's 2005 report obtained that had not been taken into account. These included the decision on the part of HMIC specifically not to include the written section on force collaboration within the final report. Nor, it was also to be discovered, had recognition been given within the report to the expectation that implementation was to be carried out in conjunction with comprehensive Workforce Modernisation. A leaked memorandum from ODPM in late 2005 that local government reform was now under active consideration was also to undermine the earlier assumption on the part of HMIC that no plans for local government reform were currently planned and that unilateral police reorganisation was therefore appropriate.
‘I'm sorry you're not satisfied. We like to co-operate, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll call an early meeting of the Watch Committee and put you on the agenda.’
‘That would be kind of you.’
Matlock had halted as he left. ‘Do you remember a time, Chief Constable, when Watch Committees gave instructions to the police?’
(Dick Morland: Heart Clock, N.E.L. Science Fiction, 1973)
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