Review Essay The changing ideology and practice of modem policing

CHRIS MURPHY Ministry of The Solicitor General of Canada

DAVID BAYL,EY and JEROME SKOLNICK, The New Blue Line, Police Innovation in Six American Cities. New York The Free Press, 1986 RICHARD KINSEY, JOHN LEA and JOCK YOUNG, Lasing the Fight Aguinst Crime. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986 ROBERT REINER, The Politics of the Police. Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1985 (St. Martin’s Press, N.Y.) MOLLIE WEATHERITT, Innovations in Policing. Beckeniiam, Kent: Croom Helm, 1986

Since the creation of the London Police in 1829, the role and control of public policing has been the subject of ongoing debate. Granted exclusive legal powers and the right to use coercive force, the police have evolved as an in- creasingly important and influential agency of social control in modern urban society. In order to maintain organizational autonomy and public legitimacy, the police historically have adapted their social role, organiza- tional structure and operational strategies to meet varied social and politi- cal influences.

The recent emergence of ‘community policing’ as the latest police reform movement has been associated with a number of distinct social, political and economic factors. Expensive and expansive police services, declining neigh- bourhood safety in core urban areas, class or race-based social conflict and a convincing academic critique of police efficiency and effectiveness have created public and political pressure for change in conventional police ideol- ogy and practice in both the United States and Great Britain. Alternative- ly, community policing can be seen as an ideological response to the ongoing search €or community and order in modern urban society, a political promise of responsive and responsible police service, a programmatic set of internal, organizational and managerial reforms, and a pragmatic emphasis on effec- tive crime control.

Though the four books reviewed in this essay reveal a wide range of opinions about the nature and accomplishments of current police reforms, they collectively confirm that public policing, at least ideologically and to a

Canad. Rev. SOC. & Anth. / Rev. canad. SOC. & h t h . 26(2) 1989

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lesser extent substantively, is in a critical period of significant change. The New Blue Line by David Bayley and Jerome Skolnick is an attempt

to document and promote the development of creative police management and organizational change in urban American policing. The authors, who have published extensively on various aspects of public policing, provide descriptive case studies of organizational reform and innovation in six large u.S. police departments. The politics, personalities, problems and programs that distinguish these particular innovative police departments are docu- mented and presented as exemplary models of progressive urban policing. Alternatives to conventional police organization and practice are illustrated by the Santa Anna Police Department’s creation of civilian police service of- ficers, Detroit’s Store Front police stations in low income neighbourhoods, Houston’s decentralized community-oriented police organization, Newark’s aggressive public order street policing programs, Denver’s high tech crime analysis and directed patrol strategies and Oakland’s mixed foot and mobile patrol program in multi-racial neighbourhoods. The authors conclude with a general analysis of organizational change and the management of im- plementation, based on observations from the six departments.

The New Blue Line can perhaps best be described as a sort of ‘In Search of Excellence’ for modern policing, where selective case studies are used both to inform and to motivate those interested in management innovation and organizational reform. While written in an upbeat and entertaining style, the authors’ analysis of organizational change and police reform has some serious limitations.

No evaluative or comparative data are provided, nor is reference made to broader organizational theory or research. It is therefore difficult to assess the actual impact of these strategies on police practice or their significance as fimdamental organizational reforms. More surprising, given Bayley’s and Skolnick’s earlier critical work, is the failure to address some of the obvious problematic implications of innovative police strategies which advocate ag- gressive order maintenance, enhanced police discretion and police involve- ment in neighbourhood politics. One can only conclude that the authors had primarily a police audience in mind and chose to ignore the issues in order not to undermine the case for police reform and managerial innovation.

However, such sentiments are not shared by Mollie Weatheritt, as is clear from her relentlessly critical analysis of applied police research and police innovation in Great Britain. Innovations in Policing is the work of a decided- ly skeptical author, whose own experience with police research and policy development with the British Home Ofice and with a private police foun- dation has given her a keen appreciation of the relationship between police reform and applied social research.

Weatheritt analyses the recent British emphasis on community policing, relates its development to political concern over the declining legitimacy of British police and the fiscal concerns of local and national governments. The research and documentation supporting innovative police programs, such as foot patrol, community involvement and various crime prevention programs, are criticized as being politically inspired, conceptually confused,

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methodologically unsound and empirically unverifiable. Consensus within government and policing circles that despite weak em-

pirical evidence and uncertain program outcomes, community-based police innovations are nevertheless successful alternatives to conventional police strategies, are in the author’s view a product of the politics of legitimation and public relations. Weatheritt suggests that applied police research con- ducted within a highly politicized setting and therefore methodologically and conceptually limited, will be used uncritically to support and legitimate reform objectives.

Though the author is quick to point out the limitations of applied police research she provides no advice about how inevitable political and research constraints inherent in such organizational studies can be overcome. The reader must choose between the optimistic conclusions of applied police re- search which seem to suggest that ‘everything works’ or the author’s pes- simistic conclusions that ‘nothing works or at least can be proven to work’. Nevertheless, Weatheritt’s useful review and analyses of applied police re- search do provide an important reminder of the dangers of inadequate, self- serving institutional research and indicate a need for more critical and methodologically sophisticated appraisal of the substantive accomplish- ments of police reform.

If Weatheritt is skeptical about the actual changes in police practice produced by reform rhetoric and innovative programs, the authors o f h s i n g The Fight Against Crime are worried by both the rhetoric and the reality of police reforms. Self-described ‘new left realists,’ Richard Kinsey, John Lea and Jock Young view current emphasis on community-based police reform as signalling a significant change in the ideology and practice of public polic- ing in Great Britain. They contend that the traditional consensual basis of British policing has been undermined by declining police efficiency in con- trolling crime in minority communities and that the resulting loss of public support has promoted the adoption of more proactive, aggressive and authoritarian policing strategies. Consequently, British police have become increasingly ‘marginalized’ from a public that is reluctant to report crime and provide the support required for effective crime control.

Recent emphasis on public order maintenance or street policing in work- ing class communities is criticized as broadening the role and discretionary powers of the police while further diverting police efforts to control crime. Police attempts to recreate consensus policing by developing multi-agency contacts between police, community groups, and social services agencies are seen as an attempt to penetrate and control communities and extend police power and influence. New information technologies and surveillance strategies are criticized as both ineWcient and supportive of more intrusive police methods which violate individual civil liberties.

The authors conclude their critique of contemporary policing by propos- ing a new style of community controlled policing. ‘Minimal Policing’ advo- cates that police only respond to citizen requests for crime services, restrict role activities to crime control, avoid independent police-initiated strategies, abandon multi-agency or community contacts and become directly account-

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able to citizens and local governments. It is hypothesized that by adopting minimal policing, the police will be seen as responsive and accountable, thereby generating public and political support, which will ultimately make police more efficient in controlling crime.

The concept of a publicly responsive, politically accountable police depart- ment with an unambiguous social control mandate, appropriate but con- strained legal powers, and effective crime control strategies is, of course, the best of all possible policing worlds. However, it is difficult to understand how minority and working class communities would be better served by police departments that restrict their activities to crime, that ignore public order problems, that work in isolation from neighbourhood groups and so- cial agencies, and that avoid modern technology and involvement in crime prevention. Indeed, many poor, working class communities complain that they already have minimal policing and surveys indicate that they don’t like it. As one person’s coercion is another one’s protection, most citizens and communities indicate that they want more policing, not less.

Though Losing the Fight Against Crime is a selective and an ideological- ly constrained analysis of current policing, it does mark an important step towards the development of a more realistic new left attempt to grapple with the complex problems and contradictions of policing crime and social order in contemporary urban society.

Robert Reiner’s book, The Politics of the Police, on the other hand sug- gests that it is the partisan politicization of modern policing that lies a t the heart of the contemporary crisis in British policing. Reiner’s analysis of the police and police reform is based on an extensive review of police history, sociology and politics. His critique of orthodox conservative and revisionist left police histories produces a more balanced and flexible conception of the development of contemporary policing than previous ideologically in- fluenced interpretations allow. To Reiner the history of British policing has been characterized by a continual and conscious effort to create and main- tain public support and legitimacy in the face of political and social conflict.

‘Consensus’ policing was accomplished by emphasizing non-partisan, low profile, legalistic and non-aggressive policing. Contemporary British polic- ing, it is argued, has become increasingly politicized and associated with divisive government social and fiscal policies. Partisan political involvement and the development of a more insular bureaucratic, technocratic and ag- gressive policing style has undermined police legitimacy and alienated an increasingly suspicious and divided public.

Reiner provides a comprehensive review of current sociological research on police culture and police work. Analysis of research on the distinctive and insular occupational culture of policing and studies of work activities, crime control effectiveness, police discretion and discrimination, provide evidence of the complex and often contradictory reality of routine police work and further undermines abstract and simplistic portrayals of routine policing and its varied social control functions. Reiner concludes his review of the literature with an entertaining and perceptive analysis of the mystification of modern policing through the popular media.

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A section on Law and Politics reinforces the author's previous critique of direct legal and political control of the police. Reiner suggests that legal at- tempts to limit police power or discretion will ultimately fail if they remain unrelated to the subcultural rules and sentiments that guide police be- haviour. Direct political control of policing by parties of any political stripe is rejected as unworkable given the resistance of police officers to partisan political control and as undesirable given the inevitable vulnerability of minority interests to mqjority controlled policing. Police politicization, it is argued, will further exacerbate the fundamental social and political conflicts that police were originally created to mediate and control. Instead, Reiner proposes a renewed emphasis on the development of independent police professionalism and a return to a consensus policing style. For these reasons, the recent community-based policing reforms of the London Metropolitan police are endorsed as progressive and potentially liberating for both police and community.

While Reiner's analysis is a powerful rebuttal of simplistic political or legal reform arguments, his faith in police professionalism as an alternative is equally suspect. The development of police professionalism has been the holy grail of police reform for a century. That it has produced so little to counteract the current problems of policing, suggests either that it is unat- tainable or that it is irrelevant.

Whether or not one agrees with Reiner's analyses of the problems of con- temporary policing and his prescription for police reform, this book sets a new standard for police scholarship and reasoned debate. The author's ex- tensive reviews of police history and research make it an excellent text, while his balanced and articulate analysis of the current political and academic debates over the role and control of modern police is a valuable contribution to the current literature.

It is difficult for the reader of these four books to assess whether current changes in modern policing are making the police more effective and respon- sive to community influence or that reform rhetoric simply legitimizes the expansion of police power and influence over the community. The answer to this question depends not so much on one's view of the police, but of the nature of the changing social and legal order that they facilitate and enforce.

Erratum

In B. Wellman's review of E. Nardocchio's THEATRE AND POLITICS IN MODERN QUEBEC (CRSA Nov. 88, 25(4): 678) "culture" should be inserted after "Quebec" in line 19 and "provinces'' should be in the singular in line 27.