Louise Westmarland

Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence

This article analyzes evidence from a survey of police officers who were asked about their attitudes towards police corruption, unethical behaviour and minor infringements of police rules. It reveals that most of the officers who took part in the study regard certain actions, such as those involving the acquisition of goods or money, as much worse than behaviour involving illegal brutality or bending of the rules in order to protect colleagues from criminal proceedings. It also reveals that officers who responded to the survey are relatively unwilling to report unethical behaviour by colleagues unless there is some sort of acquisitive motive or outcome predicted. Overall the findings support the existence of cultural “blue code” and “Dirty Harry” beliefs systems surrounding police rule bending, but also provide an initial study of a small sample (n=275) that point to the value of further investigation.

The Antagonisms of Choice: New Labour and the reform of public services

Choice has emerged as a key idea for the reform of public services in the UK and internationally. This paper explores three sets of problems in the analysis of choice in public policy. First, at what level should we be studying choice (specific mechanisms, national politics, transnational processes and travelling ideas)? Second, what sorts of tendencies, forces and discourses are being mobilised through the politics of choice? Third, we examine the ‘antagonisms of choice’: exploring the different and possibly divergent political conflicts that surround choice in public policy. We examine three types of antagonism: around inequalities, power and publicness.

Negotiating Violence and Gender: Security and the Night Time Economy in the UK

This chapter examines how gender intersects with the working practices and occupational culture of door security staff, often referred to as door supervisors or ‘bouncers’, and who represent an arm of Britain’s bourgeoning private security industry. Whilst recognising that night-time security work can often be mundane and non-eventful (Monaghan, 2002b) the main body of this chapter deals with the management of violence and aggression by female bouncers. Within the context of Britain’s commercially driven, alcohol fuelled night-time economies we focus on what we term ‘violence work’ (Hobbs, O’Brien & Westmarland, 2007) by exploring how female bouncers are controlling and preventing aggression and physical violent episodes involving male and female customers within licensed venues.

Creating citizen-consumers? public service reform and (un)willing selves

This chapter explores the role of conceptions of the consumer in the reform of public services in the United Kingdom. In such reforms the consumer has embodied both a specific vision of modernity and a model of the agentic ‘choice making’ individual. We examine the way that the figure of the consumer has been enrolled into political and governmental discourses of reform and its problematic relationship to the figure of the citizen. We then consider responses from people who use public services: exploring their preferred forms of identification and conceptions of the relationships that are at stake in public services.1 These responses indicate a degree of skeptical distance from governmental address and point to problems about the effectiveness of strategies of subjection. We conclude by considering the analytical and political significance of unwilling selves as dialogic subjects.

Police ethics and integrity: can a new code overturn the blue code?

ABSTRACT This paper analyses police officer perspectives on the seriousness of potential misconduct or unethical behaviour, and the factors that might shape whether they would report their colleagues’ misdemeanours. It compares responses from police officers in UK three forces, looking at potentially corrupt behaviours described in a series of scenarios. The discussion includes why some types of misdemeanour seem more likely to be reported and the potential effects of a newly introduced formal Code of Ethics. In terms of differences between ranks and roles, and different responses from different services, the study suggests that the way police culture operates is significant and needs to be more widely addressed. The study used scenario-based questionnaires to elicit views about the seriousness of certain police behaviours and to ask whether officers would report colleagues’ misdemeanours. It develops a previous survey by one of the authors which conducted a similar survey published in 2005. Using the same questionnaire the new study examined a larger and more diverse sample of serving officers (nu2009=u2009520). This new study compares responses from police officers in three UK forces, geographically distributed across the country and have differing characteristics in terms of size, rurality, population density and policing priorities.

‘Snitches get stitches’: US homicide detectives’ ethics and morals in action

This paper draws upon evidence from a short but intensive period of ethnographic fieldwork with a specialist homicide squad in a large US city. A range of homicides were observed during the study, and the discussion that follows describes a number of cases in depth and the difficulties the detectives experience in obtaining evidence from witnesses who may be frightened or unwilling to help them. The way they regard these problems and lack of cooperation, and the techniques they use to obtain information or confessions from suspects are explored. To analyse these problems, the paper reflects upon the ‘ruses’ detectives were observed to use in their attempts to obtain confessions and the way they rationalise these methods in terms of their personal and professional ethics.

Governance of policing and cultural codes: interpreting and responding to policy directives

In terms of governance, British policing seems to arise from a history of local traditions influenced more recently by centralist managerial demands. A creeping process of privatisation has led social scientists to argue that patterns of governance in British policing are changing in several directions. This has included the way police officers not only are challenged, but also challenge these changing modes of governance in terms of ethical codes of behaviour. There is evidence that police officers, as meaningful actors, have made attempts to diverge from these strictures and have forged their own ways, via their cultural knowledge and practices, to ‘do policing’, rather than relying upon codes of practice or rules and regulations.

Challenges of Policing London: A Conversation with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens

This interview explores the career and philosophies of one of the most powerful police commanders in the world, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Sir John Stevens, as the head of this Service, has some innovative and often controversial ideas about how London can be made the safest capital city in the world. In the following conversation he explains the underlying approach to his work and future plans for improving the lives of the people who live in the city and its surroundings.