Fair Cop: Learning the Art of Policing PDF
Preview Fair Cop: Learning the Art of Policing
FAIR COP: LEARNING THE ART OF POLICING Janet B.L. Chan with Chris Devery and Sally Doran Police forces around the world have been undergoing major social and organizational changes in recent years. In this unique longitudi- nal study, Janet Chan, Chris Devery, and Sally Doran analyse the complexity of police socialization in response to changing conditions. Following 150 new police recruits through two years of training and apprenticeship, the authors question the traditional model of social- ization that assumes a degree of stability and homogeneity in the organizational culture. They suggest that recruits' developmental paths are often quite diverse and the overall police culture is increas- ingly subject to change. Drawing on interviews, observations, and questionnaires, the authors depict the complex processes by which recruits adapt, re- define, cope with, and make sense of the positive and negative aspects of their training and apprenticeship. Bringing together rigorous quantitative analysis with rich ethnographic description, Fair Cop provides new empirical data and theoretical understanding regarding change and the reproduction of police culture. JANET B.L. CHAN is a professor in the School of Social Science and Policy at the University of New South Wales. CHRIS DEVERY teaches at New South Wales Police College. SALLY DORAN is a research assistant at the School of Social Science and Policy at the University of New South Wales. This page intentionally left blank JANET B.L. CHAN with Chris Devery and Sally Doran Fair Cop: Learning the Art of Policing UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Incorporated 2003 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3663-5 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8491-5 (paper) Printed on acid-free paper National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Chan, Janet B.L. (Janet Bick Lai), 1948- Fair cop : learning the art of policing / Janet B.L. Chan; with Chris Devery and Sally Doran. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3663-5 (bound). ISBN 0-8020-8491-5 (pbk.) I. Police training. 2. Police - Attitudes. I. Devery, Chris II. Doran, Sally III. Title. HV7923.C43 2003 363.2'071 C2002-904349-2 This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Contents Acknowledgments vii 1 Organizational Socialization and Professionalism 3 2 Research Organization and Methods 41 JANET CHAN AND SALLY DORAN 3 Joining the Organization 62 4 Learning at the Academy 80 CHRIS DEVERY 5 Learning in the Field 145 6 Taking On the Culture 201 7 Negotiating the Field 248 8 Doing Gender 276 SALLY DORAN AND JANET CHAN 9 Conclusion: Learning the Art of Policing 301 Notes 317 Bibliography 325 Index 335 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This study was funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Col- laborative Research Grant (1995-7) as a joint venture between the Uni- versity of New South Wales (UNSW) and the New South Wales Police Service (NSWPS), with Janet Chan as the chief investigator and Chris Devery as the chief collaborator. The success of the grant application was due partly to the support and assistance of the then assistant commissioner, Jeff Jarratt of the NSWPS, the then dean of studies at the NSW Police Academy, David Bradley, and the then Director of the UNSW Research Office, Merrilee Robb. Many people in the NSW Police Service contributed to the success of this study. I would like to give my special thanks to the class of police recruits who generously agreed to participate in the study. The project would not have been possible without their consent and cooperation. More than anything else, we are grateful for their appreciation of the value of research. Thanks are due also to the many academy staff, patrol/local area commanders, education development officers, field training officers, shift supervisors, and other police officers who coop- erated with and facilitated our fieldwork over the two years. I would also like to thank Julie Stewart for facilitating the negotiation of the publishing agreement. Chris Devery acted as our first point of contact at the police service, and the project benefited from his ability to convey the importance of the research to a wide range of people within the service and secure their understanding and support. Chris also undertook some of the fieldwork, provided valuable comments on the manuscript, and wrote chapter 4. Sally Doran provided the pillar of strength for this complex and at viii Acknowledgments times difficult project. Besides helping design the research instruments, interviewing and observation, managing and analysing data, main- taining financial accounts, and conducting library research, she man- aged the onerous task of organizing the data collection activities - all of this with efficiency, enthusiasm, and meticulous attention to detail. Her ability to orchestrate the project's complex research tasks around an inflexible timetable while meeting other demands of the research (all this while working half-time!) was truly remarkable. It is not an exag- geration to say that the project would not have succeeded without her strong and capable hands. Sally is also the junior author of chapter 2 and the senior author of chapter 8. For their assistance with the interviews and observations, I thank (in alphabetical order) Lyn Barnes, Liz Bowen, Jody Camden, Lise Carroll, Fay Davidson, Sara Graham, Marion Horsky, Frank Leonard, Kim McKay, Michael Murphy, Deirdre Shields, Lisa Simone, Richard Thorowgood, and Darren Viscovich. Frank Leonard deserves special thanks for his thoughtful contributions to the project and his willing- ness and ability to meet some of the more demanding aspects of field- work. Sadly, Marion Horsky passed away before the end of the project. She was a source of inspiration to us: even when she was too ill to contribute, she never lost her enthusiasm for the project. I also thank Lise Carroll and Deirdre Shields for assisting with the data analysis of some of the surveys. For their help transcribing the interviews, I thank Beverly Loughton, Karen Monkerud (who also assisted with data entry), Fran Smithard, and Janelle Stevens. I am grateful for the administrative support given to the project by the University of New South Wales, especially Susan Byrne at the School of Social Science and Policy, who handled the paperwork, and Warwick Dawson at the research office, who dealt with various aspects of the industry partnership arrangements. For their persistence and hard work in negotiating with the NSW Police Service a licence to publish, I thank Peter Dowdall and James Walsh of the UNSW Re- search Office. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the School of Social Science and Policy for their support over the years. I benefited from my study leave at the University of British Columbia in the second half of 1997. My appointment as Walter S. Owen Visiting Chair at the Faculty of Law and as visiting scholar at Green College provided a stimulating environment for my work on this project. Thanks are also due to David Dixon, Richard Ericson, Peter Manning, Peter Saunders, and two anony- Acknowledgments ix mous reviewers of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology for their comments on the paper 'Negotiating the Field/ in which I explored some of the theoretical arguments of this book. Virgil Duff deserves special thanks for his support of this book. The comments of three anonymous reviewers for University of Toronto Press and the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada (HSSFC) were invaluable in helping me sharpen the focus of the book. The manuscript benefited from the careful editing by Matthew Kudelka. I also gratefully acknowledge the subsidy granted by the Aid to Schol- arly Publications Program of the HSSFC. Finally, I would like to thank my partner Peter Saunders and my children Karen Beilharz and Kenneth Chan, who have supported me through years of trying to balance the demands of work with meeting their needs. I also thank Karen for preparing the index. Preliminary results of this study were presented as papers at learned conferences over the years. These include: J. Chan, 'Learning the Craft of Policing.' Paper to the Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology, Wellington, NZ, 1996; J. Chan, '"Good" and "Bad" Policing: Views of Recruits.' Paper to the Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology, Brisbane, 1997; J. Chan. 'Learning the Culture: The Effect of Age, Gen- der, Education and Ethnicity on the Socialisation of Police Recruits.' Paper to the American Society of Criminology Annual Conference, San Diego, 1997; J. Chan and S. Doran, 'Learning in the Field: The Transmis- sion of Cultural Knowledge in Police Organisations.' Paper to the Aus- tralian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Annual Conference, Surfers Paradise, 1998; and J. Chan, 'Negotiating the Field: New Obser- vations on the Making of Police Officers.' Paper to the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Annual Conference, Perth, 1999. A substantially expanded and revised version of 'Negotiating the Field' was published in 2001 in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology.
The list of books you might like
