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Chameleon Dinosaur? Chameleon Or Dinosaur? A Study of Police Management Culture. Victor Paul OLISA. London School of Economics and Political Science PhD Thesis UMI Number: U198801 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U198801 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 British Library of Political and Economic Science ABSTRACT. Most of the literature on police culture has concentrated on the culture of lower rank uniformed officers, often referred to as 'cop culture'. This thesis addresses the issue of whether there is a distinctive 'management culture' in the higher levels of police forces. Quite clearly, the concept of management culture generally in organisations and specifically in the police service is a recognised and accepted one. However, the relationship between cop culture and management culture is an uncertain one. The thesis is based on interviews with 51 superintending rank officers from eleven Forces. This data is used to analyse the content and dynamics of senior police management culture. Over the last three decades the police service has implemented a number of changes in its structure and management style. Some of these have seen operationally self-sufficient basic command units headed by superintendents replace divisional units headed by chief superintendents. With the removal of the chief superintendent rank, superintendents are now in a hierarchical position that requires them to make policy decisions and control how they would be implemented. The literature on rank-and-file police is voluminous. Research on chief officers, though less frequent, is increasing. Hitherto, however, there has been no research on this increasingly powerful and influential group of senior managers, although the police reforms of the last decade (and those in the pipeline) make superintendents pivotal in the policy-making process. Contemporary changes in police organisational structure has placed this group of officers in leadership positions, with the opportunity to change both the culture of the organisation as well as within their own peer group. They are crucial if the government is to bring about its promised reform and improvement in policing services. This study provides the first systematic information about the characteristics and culture of this increasingly significant managerial tier of the police organisation. It concludes that superintendents are a particularly adaptable and pragmatic group, adjusting to necessary changes as smoothly as possible - chameleons rather than dinosaurs. 2 CONTENTS List of tables 4 Abbreviations 5 Acknowledgements 7 Foreword 8 Chapter 1. Introduction 10 Reasons for study Chapter 2. Methodology 32 Chapter 3. Culture - an analytical paradigm 47 Police Culture Chapter 4. Social background 75 Chapter 5. Police managerialism 105 Chapter 6. Management of change 127 Chapter 7. Contemporary policing issues 149 Chapter 8. Crime and its control 187 Chapter 9. Public order 221 Chapter 10. Social philosophy 243 Chapter 11. Police management culture 257 Conclusion Notes 284 Appendices 289 References 298 3 List of tables. No. Heading Page 1 Total Police Officer Strength in the Police Service in England and Wales. (Home Office 2001a) 22 2 Total number of Superintendents in 43 Forces 36 in England and Wales (includes the rank of Chief Superintendent up to 1994/95 3 Percentage of Superintendent rank officers by gender and ethnicity 36 4 Respondents’ personal details 37 5 Age at which respondents joined the police service 38 6 Age at which respondents joined the police 39 7 Range of respondents’ date of birth 75 8 Social class origins of superintendents, constables 79 and chief constables of respondents 9 Types of school attended 83 10 Qualifications gained by respondents 85 11 Formal qualifications held by respondents 86 12 Training and courses my respondents had received 88 during their career 13 Type of work officers did before joining the police 92 14 Type and duration of work each officer did before joining 93 15 Stop and searches of persons in 1997/98 relative to population 209 16 Stop and searches of persons in 1998/99 and estimated population figures 210 17 Stop and searches of persons in 1999/2000 and estimated population figures 210 18 Likelihood of being stopped within and outside London 211 4 Abbreviations. ACPO Association of Chief Police Officers BCS British Crime Survey BCU Basic Command Unit CID Criminal Investigation Department DPP Director of Public Prosecutions EOSC Employment Occupational Standards Council GTR Getting Things Right IMF International Monetary Fund IPCC Independent Police Complaints Commission MPA Metropolitan Police Authority MPA Metropolitan Police Service NPM New Public Management PACE Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 PCA Police Complaints Authority PCCG Police Community Consultation Group PCSO Police Community Support Officers 5 To Lindsey, Elizabeth and Yannick. Thank you for your support, understanding and patience. 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express very warmly my sense of gratitude to the following friends and colleagues who have given ungrudging help and guidance in the preparation of this thesis. I need hardly add that the errors and weaknesses which remain are all my own. I shall like to start with Sir William Taylor, who as Commissioner of the City of London at the time I applied for the Bramshill Fellowship Scheme, supported my application and added a separate and personal letter to the one that I sent to each chief officer when I approached them to use their Force in the study. I am immensely grateful. Mr Perry Nove, the current Commissioner for the City of London Police, for his support and encouragement. All the officers who ‘volunteered* to be interviewed for the study, for their openness and welcoming attitude, which, for me, made our time together memorable and very enjoyable. I also thank their chief officers for their permission to carry out the study in their Forces. John Wilson, chief inspector in the City of London Police. The City of London Police Authority, and The City of London Police. Josephine, Lily and Victoria, my sisters, for assistance and encouragement beyond the call of sibling love. Saving the best until last, for my tutor Professor Robert Reiner, without whose guidance and support this work would not have materialised. I wish to express my thanks also to all those authors and publishers whose works have been quoted. The sources of these quotations have been separately acknowledged in the Notes and Bibliography. If any prove to have been omitted, I apologise. 7 FOREWORD SOME PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS BY A CHIEF OFFICER In this thesis, the author identifies a number of inter-related issues and factors, which influence the behaviour of police superintendents and through them and their stewardship of the managerial process, the activities of police. The police service is significantly different to most other public sector service delivery organizations. The scale of the demands placed upon the service is matched by an exceptional range of activity and most recently by very high public expectations about process and performance. These combine to make policing complex and difficult and in turn the management of policing has become equally so. In another sense however, the police service is very similar to all organizations and manifestly, leadership and vision play a vital role. In particular, any scrutiny of the management of the service illuminates obvious examples of the general principle that the conduct and visibility of senior managers has a profound effect on the organization. In considering the activities, style and influence of the modem superintendent, the author rightly identifies the recent enhancement and importance of their role and responsibilities. A number of factors have brought this about, including reductions in overall numbers, the creeping process of devolution and devolvement and a new performance rigor, which is centred on the basic command unit within forces. The pivotal influence of the superintendent rank has therefore evolved and become more critically influential. In his examination of the behaviours and influence of superintendents, the author notes that although much has been written about the basic organizational culture of the police service (the so-called canteen culture) little has been written about the cultural behaviour of senior managers. In the last 40 years, this has certainly changed, accelerated probably by the high percentage of graduates now found at that rank. The singularity and predictability of yesterday’s senior managers have certainly been eroded. Not least because the hierarchical, risk-averse, disciplined work process has been replaced by the freedoms of devolution and entrepreneurial opportunity. The increased importance and relevance of superintendents makes their group culture worth studying and defining. In doing this, the author notes a critical inter-relationship between the espoused values of the police service and the
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