Carrie B. Sanders

Social Reliability in Qualitative Team Research

Much of the attention in team-based qualitative research has been on reflexivity, subjectivity, and emotionality in the relationships between researchers and subjects during data collection and analysis. There has been less emphasis on the relationships among researchers, especially the social dynamics of inter-coder agreement in what we call in this article ‘social reliability’. We explore three aspects of social reliability during team coding: explicit team knowledge, implicit team suppositions and assumptions, and explicit and implicit emotionality. Inter-coder reliability is not merely a methodological and scientific issue, but also a social one. Researchers ignore it at their peril. We suggest that researchers should endeavour to develop ways of explicitly recognizing and incorporating social reliability into their projects in order to enrich our understanding of research subjects.

Police ‘empires’ and information technologies: uncovering material and organisational barriers to information sharing in Canadian police services

Information sharing and collaborative policing have become hot topics within policing circles, especially in the wake of such horrific events as school shootings and multiple murder cases. In response to growing concerns over inadequate information sharing and integrated policing, police organisations are actively centralising their services through the implementation of shared technologies (such as computer aided dispatch systems and record management systems). Drawing on interviews and participation observation within two technologically similar Canadian police services, we uncover the material, social and organisational barriers to information sharing and integrated policing. We conclude by arguing that technological anomalies arising from materiality and organisational practices uncovers a critical functional disconnect between the design and patrol officer use of information technologies.

Reframing norms: boundary maintenance and partial accommodations in the work of academic technology transfer

Much has been written about the commercialization of academic research and the role of technology transfer (TT) in mobilizing public sector science. Much of this literature maps a process of institutional isomorphism through which the norms of academy and industry are seen to grow increasingly aligned, facilitated, in part, by new organizations such as offices of technology transfer. Yet questions remain about how fulsome this process has been, with some scholars exploring concurrent processes that reinscribe boundaries and clarify important social distinctions between commercial and non-commercial ends. We report the result of a qualitative study of TT professionals in Canada to explore the complex nature of the ‘renormalization’ process. We argue that TT professionals solicit industry involvement but accommodate the demands of industry only in part; in turn, they solicit academic involvement by reframing the demands and priorities of commercialization along more academic lines. Ironically, by reframing the norms of commercialization, TT professionals effectively reinforce boundaries between the academy and industry and secure only a partial accommodation by academics to industrial norms. We conclude by raising questions about the meaning of traditional metrics of commercial success for innovation policy. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Need to know vs. need to share: information technology and the intersecting work of police, fire and paramedics

Emergency preparedness concerns over inadequate emergency interoperability among police, fire and emergency medical services (EMS) have led to the adoption of shared information technologies. Using a social worlds/arenas framework, I ethnographically study police, fire and EMS, as ‘users’ of technology, to understand how they interact with their technologies, and the ways in which their respective organizational contexts, cultures and practices shape technological functioning and collaborative action. From this analysis, I uncover social world contexts (ideologies) and individual actions (social legitimation and hierarchy of credibility) that alter technological functioning and create impediments to emergency interoperability. I further highlight an important ideological disconnect between the design and in-situ application of emergency technologies. I conclude by discussing the extent to which policies and technological innovations cannot, in and of themselves, address emergency preparedness concerns.

Canadian Police Mothers and the Boys’ Club: Pregnancy, Maternity Leave, and Returning to Work

This article explores police mothers’ perceptions of their workplace experiences during pregnancy and maternity leave and returning to work. Using Charmaz’s (2014) constructivist grounded theory with a critical feminist lens, qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 police mothers in the province of Ontario, Canada. Our analysis reveals that policewomen work inordinately hard to prove physical and emotional strength in an attempt to be accepted into policing’s boys’ club; encounter negative workplace responses to pregnancy; are often demoted or reassigned during maternity leave; and need to re-prove themselves as officers upon returning to work. Our research aims to enhance retention and foster changes that will best support police mothers, police organizations, and the communities they serve.

“The Wall is the City”: A Narrative Analysis of Vancouver’s Post-Riot “Apology Wall”

Abstract We conducted a narrative analysis of a collective narrative comprising inscriptions left on the locally famed “Apology Wall,” written by thousands of community members in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup Riot. In considering the Apology Wall as an “evocative object,” this study emphasized the significance of material objects as meaning-making devices. Interpretation of themes was conducted through a constructivist lens, specifically guided by literature concerning meaning-making following negative life events. Results bolstered the significance of the Wall as a sense-making device that provided a forum for the community to collectively share positive emotional expression, construct solidarity and collective identity, and express desires for restoration. By studying this collective narrative, the study not only illuminated how those affected constructed meaning after the Vancouver sports riot, but it also contributes to the literature on how communities, in general, make early sense of and respond to destructive events.

New public management and the extension of police control: community safety and security networks in Canada

ABSTRACT There are growing discussions regarding the need for collaborative responses for the provision of community safety, such that crime prevention efforts include the partnering of police with various community organisations and social services. In this article, we ethnographically examine one such development in Canada – community Situation Tables – to better understand the processes by which security networks are developed, implemented and governed. We argue that the managerial measures introduced to govern Situation Tables work as a technology of social control that redistributes responsibility for community safety and risk mitigation onto organisations and the clients they serve. Situation Tables, we argue, operate as if they are neutral entities. However, by looking at the mentalities, political and economic contexts of their development, implementation and governance identifies how they are influenced and shaped by traditional policing practices, which if not attended to carefully, can evade democratic accountability.

Policing Women’s Bodies: Pregnancy, Embodiment, and Gender Relations in Canadian Police Work:

Despite the influx of women in policing, women continue to face barriers to their full inclusion. In this article, we put women’s bodies at the center of our analysis by theorizing how pregnancy shapes the gendered interactions and experiences of women police at work. Through in-depth, qualitative interviews with 52 Canadian officers, we find that pregnancy frames women’s bodies “out of order” for “police work” and positions women even further from the ideal police body, which is ostensibly male. In response, women engage in myriad strategies to reassert their value as officers, strategies that require women to do additional labor.

Crime analysis and cognitive effects: the practice of policing through flows of data

ABSTRACT Crime analysis is the systematic analysis of crime for identifying and predicting risks and efficiently directing police resources. Adopting a social construction of technology framework, we explore the work of crime analysts to understand how they police through flows of data and how their work informs policing practices on the ground. Specifically we look at: (1) the organisational and cultural integration of crime analysis in Canada, (2) the technological support of analytic practices, and (3) the incorporation of crime analysis for policing practices. From this analysis, we argue that organisational understandings of crime analysis combined with the analytic platforms utilised have forced crime analysts to work within traditional police performance initiatives that both respond to and reinforce reactive policing practice. Crime analysis and the practice of policing through flows of data have changed the symbolic nature of policing while reaffirming traditional ways of knowing and policing.