Police Work

Principles and Practice

Colin Rogers, Rhobert Lewis, Tim John, Tim Read

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136723803
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides a highly readable account of police work. It builds upon Introduction to Police Work (Rogers and Lewis 2007) to provide a comprehensive, in depth and critical understanding of policing in today's diverse society.

Police Work: Principles and Practice meets the need for an increasingly sophisticated and professional approach to training within the police, whether this is carried out within police forces themselves or within higher education institutions. Written in an accessible style by current and former police practitioners and a nationally recognized expert on the National Intelligence Model, this book focuses – in line with the government's agenda for workforce modernization – on three key areas of policing: community, investigation and intelligence. It introduces readers to many important areas through the use of definition boxes, scenario boxes highlighting good practice, points to note boxes, flowcharts and diagrams as well as a wide range of questions and exercises to help apply their knowledge to different situations and scenarios.

This book will be essential reading for those on probationer training programmes and a valuable resource for students taking courses in policing and criminology more generally where an advanced level of understanding of the nature of police work is required.

1 The Context for This Book

Introduction

This book is written for those who want to know about policing practices and the underlying principles of that occupation. In particular it will be of use to those who have a general interest in policing, those who are undergoing their initial training as police officers and those undertaking the study of policing as part of an undergraduate or public services course in higher or further education. The police organisation has been under pressure from successive governments to change for quite some time, and this process appears to have accelerated recently due to the economic recession, with reports from the Audit Commission (2010) and HMIC (2010) suggesting that radical changes may take place in these times of austerity.

The purpose of this chapter is to briefly explain some of the reasons why and how policing has changed, and uses the debates about police training as an example of the types of discussions that are currently ongoing to set the scene for the remainder of the book.

Historical Context

The purpose of the police service is to uphold the law fairly and firmly: to prevent crime; to pursue and bring to justice those who break the law; and to keep the Queens Peace; to protect, help and reassure the community; and to be seen to do all this with integrity, ‘common sense’ and sound judgement’.

(The ACPO Statement of Common Purpose, 1990, in Newburn 2003)

The Statement of Common Purpose was a document issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers in 1990 which set out the standards the police service should maintain in their everyday work within communities. It set forth a ‘common’ standard of behaviour and working practices which would be employed by all 43 police forces across England and Wales and was, in many senses, a precursor for the managerialist and performance-driven approach imposed on the police organisation since that time. Its contents were not too dissimilar to the founding principles of policing introduced during the late 1820s, known as Peel’s Principles of Policing (Peak and Glensor 1996) which included such statements as ‘The Public are the Police and the Police are the Public’. However, while in many senses these principles still persist, as the public, society and community expectations change, the police service in England and Wales has had to re-evaluate the way it trains and educates its staff to support a more professional approach to the delivery of its services. In particular there has been a need to consider producing a police officer who carries out his or her duties drawing on a bank of high-quality research-led information supported by an ethical approach in its application. This chapter will consider the main forces for the introduction of such an approach and examines the ways in which police officers are educated need to be altered from being a ‘craft- or task-based’ education to one of a profession.

Since the introduction of the ACPO Statement of Common Purpose based on Peel’s Principles, society has changed, and with it the demands placed upon the police service have also changed, both in scale and complexity. The Select Committee on Home Office Affairs (Home Office 2008) points to several historical and ongoing issues that may be considered ‘drivers for change’ within the police service in England and Wales. For example, during the period between 1982 and 1992 recorded crime per officer rose from 26 (1982) to 42 (1992). Despite any organisational changes that the police service may have undergone, and even allowing for an increase in the ways in which the police can be contacted due to the growth in technologies such as the use of mobile phones, the increase in workload is significant, and appears to be increasing. Underpinning this, society has seen an increase in social mobility, the introduction of new technologies which have produced new types of crime such as internet fraud, child pornography, terrorism, financial investigation, organised criminality and a new national and international layer of criminal activity.

In addition, there has been an emphasis on a multi-agency approach to public protection which means greater police involvement in victim support, family liaison and management of offenders in society after prison release, safer schools and youth offending teams. Greater interaction with other agencies as outlined in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (Home Office 1998) has meant a need for a wider understanding of the role of the police within a diverse society. These major issues for the police organisation have occurred within the context of an unprecedented rise in the number of criminal offences that individuals can commit within society. Since 1997, some 3,605 new criminal offences have been created by the UK government which generates more work for the police service and their partners to deal with (Independent newspaper, 4 September 2008) coupled with the fact that since 1998, new Home Office crime classifications have been introduced resulting in the recording of 750,000 new offences in 2005/2006 alone (Home Office 2008).

The problems associated with tackling crime and disorder are not the only ones for the police to deal with. In a recent publication concerning the police and the community, Sergeant (2008) presented several persuasive arguments that the police service in England and Wales had lost the support of the public. In particular, the police appear not to have retained their good record when interacting with the public. Only 43 per cent of people thought the police could be relied upon to deal with minor crime, while only 41 per cent of victims of crime rated their local police as doing an excellent job compared with 57 per cent of those who had not experienced crime (Sergeant 2008). In support of these views, it is alleged that the police no longer work with the community to solve their problems, being instead performance driven by Home Office pressure to produce statistics relating to particular and narrowly defined crimes, thereby often ignoring the issues that may actually matter to the public. To some extent, this is echoed by the recent Select Committee on Home Affairs Seventh Report, entitled Policing in the 21st Century’(Home Office 2007), which noted, among other issues, that even allowing for the focus on serious and organised crime, minor crime and antisocial behaviour are of considerable and daily concern to the public and appear to attract insufficient police attention.

Bassett et al. (2009) appear to sum up the problems in asserting that in 1982 92 per cent of people expressed confidence in the police, while in 2004 only 47 per cent of people expressed the same sentiment. Bassett et al. (2009) suggest that the police service is now a ‘force of robots’, which employs centralised operational decision making and police officers who just act when told to and inhabit a dependency culture, unable to use their discretion and supervised by sergeants who are little more than highly paid constables. In addition, since 1995, while crime measured by the British Crime Survey has fallen by 48 per cent (Home Office 2008), 65 per cent of people thought that crime in the country had increased over the past two years and only 53 per cent thought that the police did an excellent or good job in their area in 2008/2009 (Bassett et al. 2009).

Clearly, attempting to police a multicultural, diverse, consumerist and technologically innovative society as exists in the UK is a complex and difficult task. Technology plays its part within the delivery of policing services, especially in terms of the use of situational crime prevention techniques such as CCTV cameras and alley-gates, but is a limited response to the complexities of tackling crime and disorder and engaging with communities placed upon the police service. An organisational attempt to meet the demands placed upon the police service may be found in the programme introduced by the government entitled Workforce Modernisation (Home Office 2009).

Workforce Modernisation

This approach raises profound issues about the way in which the police service manages its staff. In particular, the approach highlights a need for the police to adopt a more flexible and integrated approach to the recruitment, development and training of police officers and police staff (Home Office 2004). One way of addressing the problems identified as the police struggle to achieve performance targets and also engage effectively with the community appears to lie within the training and education of police officers. The question addressing how police officers are educated appears to have much official support. For example, one Home Office document suggested that improved training, leadership and professionalism was required at every level of the police service if it is to take on the challenge of a more varied and satisfying approach to modern policing (Home Office 2007). Consequently, workforce modernisation is an ongoing strategy and can be seen in many other areas of policing including organisational restricting and professionalising the interview programme (PIP).

The influential Flanagan report (Flanagan 2008) introduced the idea of personal responsibility for individuals who wished to become police officers, suggesting that there should be greater ownership by individuals and responsibility for their professional development, including responsibility for their pre-employment training by completing relevant degree course programmes at their own expense before being eligible for active employment. Much of this approach builds upon previous official documents such as Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) report entitled Training Matters (HMIC 2002) which suggested that there was scope for partnerships with the further education sector to exploit the existing preparation for public services programmes to provide another source of training for potential recruits. Indeed, failing to recognise formal qualifications may be demeaning and disrespectful to the individual concerned, whilse not fully appreciating that training police officers is an expensive business, and providing it if it is not needed is wasteful. Training and education for probationer constables delivered locally, in partnership with local further or higher education, has been suggested as a way forward as well as supporting those individuals with an interest in policing to undergo relevant training before actually joining a particular police force and beginning their careers (Home Office 2004). As a consequence of the ideas from various governmental and academic sources, there has arisen the notion of the ‘advanced constable’ (Savage 2007) which requires detailed examination.

The Advanced Constable

This new type of constable as envisaged by Savage (2007) has the enhanced role and empowerment of the front-line officer, including new ways of thinking about tackling crime and disorder. While working with other agencies has exposed a vacuum of leadership, the police at the lower levels of the organisation can, it is believed, fulfil this vital role. The ‘advanced constable’ needs to be a social diagnostician and mobiliser of community resources. He or she must be seen as the leader in crime control and maintaining social order within the mixed economy of policing while ensuring that others complete their functions effectively. For example, neighbourhood policing teams, consisting of special constables, community support officers, volunteers, and other community members, plus other multi-agency staff will be directed by the ‘advanced constable’ in tackling crime and disorder issues. Mixed neighbourhood policing teams may take the police out of ‘core delivery’ to some extent creating space for them to sit at the core of the leadership of that delivery, but this approach requires that individual officers have additional and different sets of skills as well as being able to carry out the traditional enforcement role.

The ‘advanced constable’ role is therefore a move from the traditional ‘soletrader’, omni-competent model in which the constable performed a wide range of functions, many of which require relatively limited skills, to one where the ‘advanced constable’ working within one specific policing capability concentrates on performing demanding tasks at a higher level of expertise, including problem solving, intelligence gathering, analysis of information and deploying high-level communication skills, to provide an ethically balanced long-term response to community issues and needs. Indeed, the Association of Chief Police Officers highlights the future need for two types of professional expertise within the police service, namely the advanced constable as team leader (front-line activity) and the technical expert, with specialist knowledge such as serious incident-investigating officers (ACPO 2007). Policing is becoming more complex in a changing landscape and it is only right that police staff be provided with the best methods and knowledge to enable them to carry out their duties.

Despite the social changes that have occurred, police officers have, until recently, received a training programme that has remained more or less constant for a long time.

Traditional Police Training

Centrex

Centrex, the common name of the Central Police Training and Development Authority (CPTDA), was established under Part 4 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Home Office 2001), and was the primary means of police training in England and Wales. It was based at Bramshill House, formerly known as the Police Staff College, Bramshill. Centrex had responsibility for many aspects of police training and development, and this was in the main delivered at bespoke police training centres situated across the country. It was responsible for overseeing the design and delivery of probationer training, investigators’ training and other key areas. Centrex was also responsible for the evaluation of this training, setting the national police promotion exams and evaluating probationers, and it also advised on the assessment of recruits.

The agency was staffed by a mixture of non-police officers (civil servants) and seconded police officers from forces across England and Wales, and had five principal foundation training sites at Ashford, Bruche, St Dials in Cwmbran, Rytonon-Dunsmore and Aykley Heads in Durham. However, there was a move away from operating Police Training Centres to running police trainee/initial probationer courses within police forces themselves but under the auspices of Centrex. Centrex itself was replaced by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) on 1 April 2007 which took over the functions of Centrex and several other bodies. The idea of the NPIA is to work in partnership with forces and other policing agencies to improve the way they work across all areas of policing.

However, the approach used by Centrex to educating police officers was not without criticism. It has been identified that for the most part of the history of police recruitment, entry and training has reflected an apprenticeship model which is guild-like in operation and form. Members begin as recruits to general policing and normally spend several years at this level before, in comparatively limited numbers, becoming specialists of any kind (O’Malley 2005). Within this system there appears to have been a conflict or major dilemma between learning the law and the practical side of learning to deal with people (Fielding 1988). The police might suspect that a recruit may not possess all the appropriate credentials at the time of their appointment but that many of the skills and qualities needed in police work may be acquired through the appropriate training programme. The police service was, by and large, regarded as a multi-faceted occupation and therefore there was a compromise between what should be included in the training syllabus and what should be omitted. However, with the recent move to divide the police force to response and neighbourhood policing, there is a need to be specific in both the skills and the content of the education which a police office receives.

In terms of the delivery of ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Thanks and Acknowledgements
• Glossary of police terminology
• Special Features of The Book
• 1 The Context for This Book
• Part 1 Community
• Part 2 Investigations
• Part 3 Intelligence
• Part 4 Investigative Practices
• Notes
• Index