|
Citation reference: Harvey, L., [1990] 2011, Critical Social Research, available at qualityresearchinternational.com/csr, last updated
8 January, 2024, originally published in London by Unwin Hyman, all rights revert to author.
A novel of twists and surpises
|
|
2.7.1 Introduction: a structural perspective
In Interpreting Policework, Roger Grimshaw and Tony Jefferson (1987) undertake ethnographic and document analysis of policework and policing policy. Their analysis is concerned with the interrelationship between law, work and democracy that they see as the three core structures within which policing as an ongoing activity is located. They are concerned with the 'normal' activities of beat work, looking separately at unit beat policing, with its emphasis on fast response, and at resident beat policing, with its emphasis on community intervention.
They examine a number of existing perspectives on the police and are critical of the empiricism and idealism of 'sociological liberalism' (of which they identify three varieties: the 'machine model', subcultural studies and environmental studies) and of the economism and voluntarism of crude Marxist class reductionism. This is not only dissatisfaction with the epistemological presuppositions but with the failure of the approaches to provide an adequate framework for understanding organised policework in practice. Empiricist approaches tend to be partial; idealist ones assertive; and reductionist ones trivialise the actual content of police work.
Grimshaw and Jefferson draw on a broad structuralist tradition in developing a framework for analysing the structural relations within which the police operate. They identified seven aspects of this synthesised view of structuralism. Individual activity becomes social through interactive discourse constituted by signs. Group communication is possible as the elements of discourse are objective. Language is a signifying system that involves different levels of signification. Signifying elements are arbitrary (not intrinsically meaningful) and signification is the result of the relational nature of signs. Applying simple generative rules allows the production of complex expressions and, vice versa, simple key terms can be used to explain elaborate discursive expressions. Significations are not fixed because elements can be re-grouped to create further significations. History is subordinate to structural transformations in structuralist analysis.
Their synthetic analysis of the police suggested that law is a signifying discourse. Such discourses sustaining police activity are objectively intelligible. Policing events have a number of discursive implications. Law can be seen as a systematic structure despite discrepancies within and between its domains as there are socially constructed categories of legal infringements (such as 'theft'). Policework can be understood through an analysis of the three key structures of law, work and democracy. However, these should not be seen as fixed. The politics of police accountability may be the basis for a structural transformation.
2.7.2 Abstraction—law, work and democracy
Grimshaw and Jefferson undertake a detailed analysis of the three key concepts, law, work and democracy, that derive from their critique of prevailing theories, mediated by their fieldwork experience. Rather than take these for granted they deconstruct the broad abstractions and develop them through concrete practice. Thus for example, law, as it relates to political activity, is seen, by various commentators, as tripartite, comprising the legal system, procedural law, and types of substantive law. Grimshaw and Jefferson argue that to assess the role of the law as a structural determinant of police behaviour, it formal structure must be investigated, rather than assumed, in order to identify the legal constraints operating in particular situations. This meant acquiring detailed knowledge of the legal structure including the powers and duties of constables and Chief Constables; the relevant Police Acts; common law; statutes and their interpretation in the courts; and the legal powers of citizens and legal authorities and the use made of them (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 18). This led them to analyse procedural law, substantive law and the legal system as concrete entities. For example, in confronting the abstract notion of procedural law, they ask questions like, what are the legal powers of constables and Chief Constables? What discretion do they have in practice in different situations? In this way the idealistic abstract notion of procedural law is replaced by a materially grounded concrete concept. This reflects Marx's approach to abstractions in Capital (section 2.3, above). Marx starts with the abstract concept but rather than construe it as a concrete fact sees it as an abstract whole emptied of empirical content which needs to be filled.
In the same kind of way they analyse the notions of work and democracy/community as they effect policework. What is important for an analytic framework, they argue, is the interrelationship between law, work and democracy. Such a framework should allow the empirical testing of the proposed interrelationships without foreclosing on the variety of empirical possibilities. They therefore distinguish between dominant and determinant structure (Althusser & Balibar, 1970) and suggest, for a host of reasons, that law, rather than work or community, is the determinant structure of police activity, in that it determines which of the three is empirically dominant at any moment. The research is thus organised around the exploration of aspects of this thesis.
2.7.3 Procedure—integrated theoretical case-study
Grimshaw and Jefferson, (1987, p. 27) undertook an integrated case-study approach because, they argued, it is the 'approach, par excellence, which enables the adequate tracing of differences and connections' and they needed a method that was capable of 'illuminating in one movement the form of the structures and their interrelationship.' The task they intended to undertake was 'equally empirical and analytic' and involved 'making distinctions, marking limits, setting out conditions and reducing processes to their elements'.
Despite their assertion about the suitability of a case-study analysis, their concern was not with case study as method but case study as a vehicle for analysing the interconnections between structures. The analytic framework organises the methodic enquiry. This differs from the more conventional approach that is characteristic of subcultural, interactionist, ethnographic case study that, as was noted in Section 1.4, exhaustively experiences a situation in order to inductively generate the implicit meanings of actions. Conventional approaches to ethnographic case-study work (especially those used by subcultural theorists) prioritise structures of meanings and thereby inhibit the making of structural connections.
The usual notion of case study had to be developed and they proposed a theoretical case-study that is characterised by 'a sufficient range of empirical differences and interconnections to constitute a starting-point for the task of elucidating theoretical concepts generated through a critique of existing theory'. Further, such a case study is not confined to comprehending subjective meanings of participants but concerned with the 'systematic articulation or connection of social structures' (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 32).
In practice this meant investigating a large metropolitan county force with a range of specialist departments and a large centralised command structure, located in an area of 'ethnic settlement and incipient economic decline'. In addition, the theoretical case study required:
detailed observational work at strategic sites within the organization designed to elucidate the full range of practices: from policy consideration through operational command and supervision, to operational duties of various kinds. It meant detailed attention to the written statements relating to working practices: standing orders, policy files and operational orders.... Finally, it meant special attention to police-public contacts of all kinds: to contacts with complainants, victims, arrestees, letter writers, petitioners and organizational agents, since these provided one important empirical indicator of the presence of the working of democratic elements. (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 33)
The field research included direct observation of police personnel at work on 57 different occasions. One of the researchers accompanied a police officer throughout all (or most) of a working shift. The selection of shifts was such as to cover different days of the week, all three shifts (early, late and night), and a variety of officers. They were present on 28 shifts of unit officers and on 29 shifts of resident beat officers. Details of seven of the former and eight of the latter are included in the book by way of representative ethnographic material.
2.7.4 Structural analysis: a brief example
As an example, the following is a résumé of Grimshaw and Jefferson's (1987, pp. 61–65) reporting of the night shift (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.) of a 'first-response car' duty. In this example, the officer being shadowed is DL, the driver of the first-response car. This is the vehicle kept in reserve and sent first to more 'serious' situations.
DL and his partner (JR) accompanied by the researcher went to a house, at 10.15 p.m., in response to a complaint from a woman that her neighbour's children had broken her windows. The PCs visited the neighbours who in turn complained about the original complainant, referring to her as a prostitute. The car was then called to a fire arriving at 10.35. The fire may have been started deliberately as part of a domestic dispute or by accident by the drunken husband. Fire officers and a panda car also arrived at the house. DL followed the fire officers upstairs to the scene of the fire. It later emerges that he has checked serial numbers on some stereo equipment in the son's room. JR chuckles, 'Well, you've got to take your opportunities'. They left the house around 11.00 and DL followed a car containing young black people and asked for a registration plate number check, which proved negative. A man, who was waiting for a late bus, was 'called over for a word'. After a return to the station they were recalled to the neighbour in the earlier incident who was not satisfied by the police action and indicated that a complaint would be made about the lack of action taken. The policemen left, joking between themselves about the potential complaint.
At 11.35 in the town centre they got a call to look out for a driver failing to stop at the scene of an accident. The discovered the car as it was being indicated to stop by a walking beat policeman. DL took over dealing with the situation after the driver admitted to have been drinking and the inexperienced 'walker' clumsily began to administer the breathalyser. The driver was cautioned and arrested after a positive test. The subsequent test, administered by the walker at the station, was negative. The man admitted to driving off but only after he had offered his name and address and had been abused by the complainant. At midnight, after dealing with the drunk driver, they responded to a general alert that intruders had been reported at the local football ground. A young man outside the ground was detained, he was clearly drunk. DL initially intended to arrest him for being drunk and incapable but after the drunk complained that he would have been home by now if he had not been detained, and that he also had an ulcer, DL took his name and address and let him go. In the interim there had been two arrests in the ground and a third person was being sought. Back at the station DL learned that one of the men arrested had the same surname as the drunk he had let go.
As he rushes from the station, the station sergeant says, 'As long as you're sure' DL drives to the address the man gave him. The door is opened by the man we know. 'Can we come in?' asks DL. The man is silent, and DL quickly walks through the gap in the doorway. As I follow, the man recognizes me and protests. DL tells him the reason for our visit. The man protests loudly again, but DL grabs him by the hair and tells him to be quiet. It is about 12.40 a.m. He is taken to the car, and DL drives to the station. There is no caution.
DL says to the man, 'You hopped over the wall. I saw you come over the wall.' 'I didn't,' says the man.
You did', said DL; 'you've taught me a lesson.'
The man was put in custody at the station, around 1.00 a.m., and a discussion ensued as to a suitable charge, given the peculiar, roofless, nature of the premises in which those arrested were found. The Vagrancy Act of 1824 was favoured by the officers in the station as it allows a charge of 'being found on enclosed premises' and this was confirmed by a telephone conversation with the senior officer on duty. On more than one occasion both JR and DL said that they saw the man arrested by DL come over the wall of the stadium. 'When they are asked about this point by the sergeant, there is laughter'. The men arrested finally admit to the offence. The sergeant talked about the Judges Rules to the researcher while all this was going on. No other significant events took place and the officers spent the rest of the shift involved in paper work.
This, and the other, extensively reported field observation are critically analysed in order to develop an introductory sketch of the main structural features. Having collected the data the researcher's analytic strategy consisted of:
perusing the data relevant to particular practices, proposing a concrete idea structured around the question of the relationship of the original theoretical concepts, then 'testing' the idea by searching for aberrant cases, reformulating the notion, if necessary, until a thesis about the relationship between the determinants of a particular practice had been achieved. (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 33)
Grimshaw and Jefferson initially address the formal elements of the structure of police work. They note the rhythm of activity during the shifts, the diversity and fragmentary nature of the beat police officer's work and bouts of desultoriness and triviality. In the example quoted, the activity takes place at the beginning of the night shift; there are a number of different activities, and some are fragmentary (the number plate check, the man at the bus stop). Grimshaw and Jefferson (1987, p. 71) argue, for example, that the need to be ready for a call is greatly responsible for the fragmentary, diverse, and desultory aspects of the job as the 'call system takes command over the individual's dispositions and instantly imposes its own priorities'. Performing trivial tasks (noted when shadowing other officers) far from being an evasion of responsibility is a response 'to the functioning and requirements of the call system'.
There is continuity, however, in some aspects of the work that have more legal substance, as, for example, in the seeking of intruders, subsequent arrests, interrogation and paperwork. Such work is concerned with interpreting and applying definitions of law. In the case of the arrest made by DL, for example, the minor routine contacts were suspended and a concerted set of actions from arrest to interrogation was undertaken with a view to explicitly catching a 'criminal'. Legal relevance, which characterises elements of continuity, is the common feature that 'unifies the otherwise disparate subjects to which significant police attention is given; unit work becomes more clearly visible as the ongoing practice of distributing and rationing scarce legal resources in response to prima-facie demands' (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 74).
Public contact is similarly fragmentary but falls into two broad camps: elective and non-elective. The woman visited by DL following a phone call is an example of the former, while the man at the bus stop, and the one outside the stadium are examples of the latter. Although the public may initiate encounters, they do not organize or direct them. The police, guided by organisational and legal structures, follow up those contacts that are or appear to be legally relevant.
In this way (although in far more detail than represented in this summary), Grimshaw and Jefferson move from the initial 'impressions and suggestions' to the identification of significant structural features of police work. This they elaborate with the aid of additional depth interviews with personnel of different ranks (in the case of the unit policing with four supervisors and seven PCs).
For example, the unit beat system can be seen to be structured around different grades of work. The existence of structured differences in competence and seniority in the unit was revealed in various ways. DL, for example, in one case took over the breathalyser procedure when the foot patroller seemed to go about it clumsily. The expectations placed upon a first-response car officer are perhaps indicated by the former's confident decision later to make an arrest despite the lack of a credible independent witness but rather to rely in effect on plausible circumstantial evidence (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 78).
They conclude that in assessing the relationships between various determinants of unit work, the organisational features lead towards legally oriented work in which both public and management play only a relatively minor role in routine activity. The call system with its inherent frustrations is designed to deal expeditiously with public interventions. However, the critical function of the public in call initiation, is mediated by the organisational deployment of resources which prioritises legal process work. Leadership and supervision are thus influential if they conform to legally oriented competence in practical application rather than to abstract rational–technical norms.
The authors undertake a similar analysis of the residential beat system. Overall, they conclude the analysis of practical policework by suggesting that the structure of law manifests itself indirectly in beat-work as, on the one hand, 'a reflex in the unit' and, on the other 'as a resource in resident beat-work measured against the search for consent'. They follow up the structural analysis of their observational material with a further analysis of policing policy.
2.7.5 Policy
In the analysis of beat work, Grimshaw and Jefferson proceeded from a critique of prevailing theories to an empirical examination guided by a structuralist view that posited the interrelationship between three structures, law, work and democracy (or community). These abstract concepts were made concrete in respect of police activity through particular attention to the practices of police officers. On the basis of their framework they proposed a set of alternative hypotheses to those implied by the machine, subcultural and environmental models. One of their major critiques of other perspectives was a lack of concern with policing policy and thus consequent lack of attempts to relate activity to policy. Rather than assume the nature of the relationship between policy and action Grimshaw and Jefferson again developed an empirically grounded materialist analysis. This involved an initial definition of policy as 'an authoritative statement signifying a settled practice on any matter relevant to the duties of the Chief Constable'. The authoritative source of policy is highlighted in this definition, as is the distinction between a descriptive statement of policy and practice. An example of such a policy would be a statement made by the Chief Constable or one of his senior officers that:
'Resident beat officers will not be taken off their beats except in exceptional circumstances.' This 'authoritative statement' clearly 'signifies a settled practice' since it has direct implications for the deployment practices of the Superintendents (that they must not use RBOs as reserve manpower), implications which are intended to be more than temporary. (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 204)
By analysing managerial practices other than policy concerns, such as advice, supervision and command, and taking into account moments of policy consideration, as well as policy inauguration, they concretised the definition of policy and located it specifically in meetings, conferences and policy files. Their analysis of the formal structure suggested that policy would be characterised by competing discourses mediated by law. 'Rational-scientific' management approaches derive directly from statutory requirements placed on Chief Constables to ensure adequacy and efficiency of provision, while 'common sense' discourse reflects the constitutional discretion vested in the constable.
Grimshaw and Jefferson's (1987, pp. 198–199) structural analysis suggested the hypothesis that 'apparent discrepancies between policy and practice are best explained by a specific examination of how the three structures (law, work and the democratic) relate to the particular policy in question, explaining the role of the legal structure in organising the relations between the structures'. Specifically, they hypothesise that occupational 'common-sense' will characterise operational tasks and that administrative tasks will be characterised by the values of rational-scientific management. Further, that the impact of policy will be more unpredictable in respect of tasks guided by occupational common sense than those where rational-scientific values are uppermost.
They developed their analysis empirically by attending 23 policy meetings at Force, Division and Subdivisional level ranging from The Chief Constables' Management Team, through the Joint Advisory Committee, to the Subdivisional Superintendent's Senior Officers' Meeting; and through an analysis of policy files, which contained records of correspondence and meetings. Faced with around seven hundred such files to analyse they indicated a list of 342 files of interest based on titles of which 62 were identified as those they preferred to analyse. In the event they were given access to 28 (45%) of their preferred list plus another 34 files mostly drawn from their initial list of 342. The analysis of the files took three to four months. A quantitative analysis of the external agencies referred to in the files, supported by an interview with the chief constable clearly shows the importance of the Home Office, which is consistent with 'expectations derivable from a study of statutory systems of accountability'. However, other statutory agencies, notably the Police Authority and the Police Complaints Board are far less significant. On the other hand, the references to various occupational and community representatives (e.g. councillors and M.P.s) reflect the perceived importance of a range of democratic and work-related audiences, 'buttressed by statutory obligations in some cases but not in others'. The actual influence of the various structures is illustrated by two operational issues, analysed in depth: unit car speeds and racial attacks. Both demonstrate the centrality of the legal structure in determining the relationship between the law democracy and work. The organisational and occupational concerns of efficiency and welfare are overridden by the legal structure in the case of a policy on car speeds. Similarly, the democratic structure with a clear and pressing public concern was overridden by the legal structure in the case of a policy on racial attacks.
In concluding the analysis of policy, Grimshaw and Jefferson argue that none of the ideas of policy as super-relevant ('machine'), irrelevant ('subculture'), shaped by the environment ('environmental'), or by class ('class-functionalist') captures the bi-polar nature of policy that our detailed observations have revealed. The notion of policy as a universal, homogeneous entity (instructions, guidelines or principles to inform practice) cannot therefore withstand a critical, concrete examination. Such an investigation produces, as has been shown, a conception of policy embracing two distinct forms (administrative versus operational), each possessing a distinctive discourse (rational-scientific versus common sense) and each producing a distinctive kind of practical outcome (predictable, calculable effects versus unpredictable, incalculable effects) (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 262).
In reviewing structural interrelationships it is clear that the priority of common sense in operational matters reflects the discretion allowed constables in law and thus occupational common sense dominates other considerations including the concerns of the community, that is, the democratic structure.
2.7.6 Structure, history and praxis—the 'police debate'
The study does not come to an end following the outline of the interrelationship between the key structures. Grimshaw and Jefferson go on to relate structure to history in order to provide a context for examining the debate about forms of policing. This they do by reference to Gramsci and to Foucault. Gramsci's hegemonic analysis, focusing on the centrality of consent and Foucault's (1979) genealogical analyses of techniques of power which posits an historical shift from the notion of sovereignty-law-repression to more subtle and economical forms of power are central to Grimshaw and Jefferson's development of an historical context. Having shown the interrelationship between the structures of law, work and democracy, using Gramsci and Foucault's historical conceptions of social control offered the possibility of indicating just how, for example, 'community policing' emerges from a scene dominated by a unit beat policing system.
Grimshaw and Jefferson argue that modern society, rather than being directly repressive, relies on consent (Gramsci, 1971) and normalises power through the more localised imposition of discipline outside, or supplementary to, the formal juridical apparatus (Foucault, 1979). Unit beat policing reflects the view of the police as representative of the law while resident beat policing appears 'less as a representative of the law than a guardian of the norm, as a community worker rather than a gendarme' (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 277).
Although unit policing and residential 'community' policing co-exist, the emergence of the latter from a situation dominated by the rationalist unit policing system can be understood by focusing on the 'structural combinations of elements that constitutes policework and notice the way in which elements of the 'old' system are re-grouped in the 'new''. The unit system based on the organizational concerns with responsiveness, speed and mobility, failed to establish consent because, it simultaneously increased police-public contact whilst reducing the intensity of such contacts. This led to contradictions in the 'message' transmitted to the public. This led to pressure for more intensive public contact to produce a 'new and more consistent message'. As a result the 'democratic structure is highlighted while the work structure and the legal structure are selectively reshaped for the task of 'normalization'—an occupational reflection of the democratic structure (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 281).
In this way Grimshaw and Jefferson show how policework selectively calls upon different structures at particular historical conjunctures. As such, a historical understanding of conjunctures in policework complements the structural analysis and informs the praxiological concern with the political debate on policing.
Although the field research took place in 1978–80, prior to the 'convulsions' of 1981, brought about by Thatcherism, they 'could not overlook' the issues that came to prominence in the following years during which the book was written. However, the book focuses on the 'normal' activities of uniformed police beat work rather than the 'explosive' events, and thus provides an 'essential background' for understanding the setting within which such events were located.
Nonetheless, Grimshaw and Jefferson have a clear praxiological concern with the politics of policing. They argue that previous contributions to the 'police debate' failed to appreciate that the demographic or legal structure cannot be changed in isolation. Grimshaw and Jefferson offer alternative proposals based on an appreciation of this structural interrelationship, and the determining role of law. The fundamental general feature of the office of constable is the idea of independence in judging infringements of law. This independence makes effective operational policy redundant and in operational matters other instruments of managerial control come into effect: deployment, supervision, training and so on.
What is needed, they argue, is a reformed legal structure, with democratic control of police policy making, is necessary for the establishment of agreed principles of public justice. Only from this base can effective operational policies be formulated. From the point of view of such a reformed legal structure the work and democratic structures can be reformed.
In the mid-1980s, in the wake of Brixton, Handsworth and Broadwater Farm, some changes are sorely needed, in order to address issues of public justice in law enforcement, and to open up these questions to democratic debate and direction. In the hope of providing useful background material for that important debate, we end this book. (Grimshaw and Jefferson, 1987, p. 296)
Notes
|
|
