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Continuity and Change in Initial Police Training: a Longitudinal Case Study

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Continuity and Change in Initial Police Training: a Longitudinal Case Study Anglia Ruskin University Continuity and change in initial police training: A longitudinal case study Julian Constable A thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Anglia Ruskin University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Cambridge, January 2017 1 Declaration I declare that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of Anglia Ruskin University is solely my own work. The copyright of this thesis rest with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgment is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 92,350 words. Julian Constable 2 Abstract This thesis, the fieldwork for which was undertaken between 2010 and 2012, examined an initial police training programme in one police force, ‘Ashton Police’1 and of one cohort of 20 student officers, over a two year period. I conducted interviews with student officers and training staff, observations of classroom and operational training and documentary analysis to produce a longitudinal case study of initial police training and early career socialisation. Whilst this was a small-scale research project, its findings are applicable to initial training and policing more broadly as well as to current reforms. I found that many of the cohort of student officers in my study already had policing experience, some in Ashton Police itself. This meant that pre-existing features of police culture served to partially undermine some of the formal intentions of the programme, from the outset. Furthermore, I found that the different types of training were all problematic. Formal, classroom based training was insufficiently connected with operational police work. Supervised field training was overly reliant on the allocation of a single field trainer for the duration of that period and was adversely affected by organisational change. Informal training (as members of operational reliefs) became so attenuated from the training process, it resembled far more a period of work rather than of training. For these reasons student officers often appeared inadequately prepared for police work. I conclude that despite the introduction of a new programme (the Initial Police Learning and Development Programme) in 2006 in Ashton Police, intended to allow innovation in the way in which initial training was delivered, considerable continuity existed alongside change. This was particularly noticeable in the long-standing conflict between, on the one hand, legalistic and procedural approaches to initial training and on the other, a more humanistic approach. It appeared at times that the purpose of initial training was not clear. In relation to the wider arena of initial police training, I argue that many of its problems originate in the historical and socioeconomic context. The reforms of initial training and the new programme, from 2006, took place in politically contentious times for the police and so, carried too great an expectation of their impact. Some aspects of reform were possibly necessary to make but were not sufficient for long- term change. I argue that a social democratic perspective of the police that focuses on the detrimental impact on the police of social conditions in ‘liberal’ (rather than 1 ‘Ashton Police’ is used here and throughout the thesis, as an alias to provide anonymity for the police force that was the subject of this study. 3 ‘social’) democracies provides a fuller understanding of the limits of these and future initial training reforms. Key words: Police, initial, training, continuity, culture, recruits, social democracy 4 Acknowledgements I would not have been able to complete this thesis without the help of a number of people who I would like to thank here. Firstly, my supervisory team and colleagues have given unquantifiable advice. I would like to thank Doctor David Skinner, Doctor Janet Foster, Doctor Liz Bradbury and Doctor James Rosbrook-Thompson for reading and commenting on drafts of the thesis. I would like to thank other colleagues, Doctor Alison Ainley and Emma Brett, who have also been enormously supportive in facilitating the space for me to complete this thesis. Secondly, I would like to thank all the student officers and training staff in Ashton Police for their willingness to participate in this research study that took place, for them, in very taxing and difficult circumstances. Thirdly, I would like to thank all those in my immediate family and friends who have provided the encouragement and support that I have needed throughout. None of what constitutes this thesis would have been possible without the collective support of all those above. 5 Contents Declaration ......................................................................................................................................................2 Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................................3 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................5 Contents ..........................................................................................................................................................6 List of tables ..................................................................................................................................................11 List of figures .................................................................................................................................................12 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................13 Context .....................................................................................................................................................14 Research aims...........................................................................................................................................15 The national context ................................................................................................................................16 Contribution to debates on recruitment and initial training ...................................................................17 A longitudinal, qualitative case study ......................................................................................................19 Nomenclature ..........................................................................................................................................20 The structure and key arguments of the thesis .......................................................................................21 Chapter 1: Police culture, recruit socialisation and initial training reform ...................................................30 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................30 Police culture and recruit socialisation ....................................................................................................30 Imported from without or constructed from within? .........................................................................32 Work and police culture ......................................................................................................................34 The ‘orthodox view’ .............................................................................................................................35 Beyond the ‘orthodox’ view ................................................................................................................41 Key questions .......................................................................................................................................51 The history and politics of initial police training reform in England and Wales .......................................52 Early years ............................................................................................................................................53 The ‘golden age’ ...................................................................................................................................57 Beyond the ‘golden age’ ......................................................................................................................62 Recent developments ..........................................................................................................................73 Key questions .......................................................................................................................................78 6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................79 Chapter 2: ‘Once a copper, always a copper’? Research methods ...............................................................81 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................81 Choosing a research topic ........................................................................................................................82
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