CONVENIENT CONSTRUCTS: HOW CHIEF POLICE OFFICERS IN ENGLAND AND WALES UNDERSTAND THE RIGHT OF POLICE TO EXERCISE POWER Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy By IAN CHARLES NORMAN SHANNON October 2018 1 Abstract Convenient constructs: How chief police officers in England and Wales understand the right of police to exercise power Chief police officers are an elite group whose beliefs and actions may contribute to reproducing, developing or transforming police legitimacy. This research answers the question, ‘how do chief police officers in England and Wales understand the right of police to exercise power?’ The chief officers who participated in this research all invoked duties to protect the public (particularly the most vulnerable), policing by consent and explanations based in law and associated checks and balances. However, the significant and original academic contribution that this thesis makes is the finding that these legitimating constructs are confused, conflicted and, above all, convenient. Confusion was evident in vague accounts of vulnerability and hazy notions of consensual policing. When discussing law, operational independence was described as ‘grey’, which may have implications for the ability or will of chief officers to resist the imposition of priorities that infringe on civil liberties. Conflict was found between a rhetoric of consent and the practice of coercion. Narratives of vulnerability and policing by consent also clashed, as hunting threats to the vulnerable may not compensate for failures to tackle issues that are more immediate for many people. Participants’ claims that law and associated checks and balances are important in ensuring police power is used properly sat uncomfortably with their distaste for the process of scrutiny. These tensions and conflicts contributed to participants’ perceptions that they were pressured and that their positions were precarious. Narratives of complexity and change can be convenient in helping chief officers assert a privileged position when making decisions about the use of power. The vagueness of vulnerability and hazy conceptualisations of consent may also be convenient legitimating narratives, which cloak coercion and control. A leitmotif was a convenient construction of a broadly consensual ‘now’ contrasted with a more coercive ‘then’, which could camouflage contemporary concerns about police legitimacy. Together these stories conveniently help chief officers, and potentially politicians, to set priorities for the use of police power that are difficult for citizens to challenge, particularly when ‘folk devil[s]’ (Wells, 2016: 278) and policing myths (Emsley, 2014) are called on in attempts to legitimate such agendas. 2 Acknowledgements My thanks go to the chief police officers who participated in this research and gave so generously of their time and thoughts, without their cooperation this thesis could not have been completed. I am extremely grateful to my supervisors, Professor Sandra Walklate and Doctor Lynn Hancock, for their wisdom, patience and the time they gave to guiding me through this satisfying but protracted process. Throughout this research I have also benefited from the encouragement, questioning and advice offered by colleagues at the University of Liverpool and from academics from other institutions attending British Society of Criminology and European Society of Criminology conferences, thank you. Finally, I am immensely grateful to my family who have lived with this project. Sarah was a patient sounding board and gave valuable advice and support throughout. Our children, Jonty and Leila, provided unfailing encouragement and good humour. I could not have done it without you. 3 Abbreviations ACC – Assistant Chief Constable, Commander in London ACPO – Association of Chief Police Officers CC – Chief Constable, Assistant Commissioner in London C o P – College of Policing (replaced NPIA in 2012) CPMG - Crime and Police Monitoring Group DCC – Deputy Chief Constable, Deputy Assistant Commissioner in London HMIC – Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMICFRS - Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, since 2017) HMCIC – Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary HO – Home Office IAG – Independent Advisory Group IOPC – Independent Office for Police Conduct (replaced IPCC in 2018) IPCC - Independent Police Complaints Commission NPCC – National Police Chiefs’ Council (replaced ACPO in 2015) NPIA – National Police Improvement Agency PCC – Police and Crime Commissioner SCC – Strategic Command Course 4 CONTENTS Abstract …………………………………………………………………………….2 Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………3 Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………….4 Contents .....................................................................................................................5 Chapter One – Introduction ……………………………………………………...10 Context ……………………………………………………………………...10 Overview ……………………………………………………………………13 Chapter Two –Hobbes to Habermas: a review of legitimacy literature ……….16 Introduction …………………………………………………………………16 Hobbes ………………………………………………………………….…..17 Weber ……………………………………………………………………….18 Durkheim …………………………………………………………………...20 Mill …………………………………………………………………………22 Beetham …………………………………………………………………….22 Procedural justice ………………...………………………………...…...….23 Critical perspectives ………………………………………………………...27 Changes in the policing environment …………………..…………………...29 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….31 Chapter Three – Reiner to Roycroft: a review of chief police officer literature ………………………………………………………………………………………32 Introduction …………………………………………………………………32 Structure of discussion ……………………………………………………...32 Policing 1981 – 1997 ………………………………………………………..33 5 Policing 1997 – 2003 ………………………………………………………..45 Policing 2003 – 2010 ……………………………………………………..…48 Policing 2010 – 2017 ………………………………………………………..52 Discussion …………………………………………………………………..59 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….64 Chapter Four – Purposeful conversations: methodology and methods ……………………………………………………………………………………....65 Introduction …………………………………………………………………65 Methodological framework …………………………………………………65 Research Design: the case for qualitative interviewing …………………….66 Considerations for an elite study ……………………………………………67 The approach to qualitative interviewing …………………………………...68 Power dynamics in interviews ………………………………………………71 The research participants ……………………………………………………72 Access ………………………………………………………………………73 Post interview contact ………………………………………………………74 Ethical considerations ………………………………………………………75 The impact of the researcher’s former status as an insider ………………….76 The distanced insider: risks, benefits and mitigation ……………………….77 Research themes and the interview schedule ……………………………….80 Analysis …………………………………………………………………….82 Transcription, coding and interpretation ……………………………………84 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….85 6 Chapter Five - Context and a power/service paradox ………………………….87 Introduction ………………………………………………………………….87 Scrutiny of elites ……………………………………………………………..87 Vulnerability ………………………………………………………………...91 Participants’ backgrounds …………………………………………………..92 Motivations for joining the police …………………………………………..94 A power/service paradox? …………………………………………………..96 Career ……………………………………………………………………….97 Change ………………………………………………………………………98 Complexity and reflecting on the use of power …………………………….102 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………....105 Chapter Six - Protecting people, particularly the most vulnerable: a convenient construct? …………………………………………………………………………106 Introduction ………………………………………………………………..106 A duty to protect and a vulnerability discourse ……………………………106 Policing purpose and the convenient ambiguity of vulnerability ………….109 Rationing or prioritisation and tensions between vulnerability, other demands and consent ………………………………………………………………..114 Dark and Hidden Streets – The Knockturn Alley Conundrum ……………..118 Threat, harm and risk ……………………………………………………….121 Conclusion …………………………………………………………...……125 Chapter Seven - Consent: myths and ‘mind forg’d manacles’ (Blake, 1794)? 127 Introduction ………………………………………………………………..127 What is policing by consent? ………………………………………………127 Peel persists ………………………………………………………………..129 7 Hazy consent ……………………………………………………………….133 Conversations and accountability …………………………………………..134 Building consent: neighbourhood/community policing …………………….136 Checking the temperature of consent: imperfect and subjective thermometers? ……………………………………………………………………………...137 From consent to mandate …………………………………………………...141 People ‘just probably grow up here and accept it’……..…………………… 142 Listening to ‘them’, or to ‘the great and the good’? ………………………...144 Withdrawn consent …………………………………………………………146 Performance management and consent ……………………………………..152 Procedural and organisational justice………………………………………155 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………157 Chapter Eight - Law and checks and balances: a necessary but insufficient justification ………………………………………………………………………..160 Introduction …………………………………………………………..….…160 ‘Ultimately the law’ … and ‘the Brownie promise’ ………………….……..161 ‘Legality and legitimacy are not necessarily the same thing’ ……………….164 Checks and balances ………………………………………………………..165 Police and Crime Commissioners …………………………………………..166 The Home Office …………………………………………………….…….168 Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, The Independent Police Complaints Commission, The College of Policing and The Code of Ethics ..170 A ‘very blurry’ and ‘grey thing’