The view of policing as primarily concerned with catching criminals raises false expectations about tackling crime and neglects what people in practice demand from the police. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
The Bill got it right – what unites the bewildering miscellany of police jobs is the use of legitimate force
For decades, policy makers and criminologists have agonised over whether the police were fundamentally a force or a service. On one hand, research on what the police did, and on what the public called on the police to do, showed that much if not most of their work did not involve the use of their law enforcement powers. On the other, media representations and the culture of the police rank and file saw "real" police work as crime fighting.
Analytically, this conundrum was resolved by the theory formulated by the American sociologist Egon Bittner. The police officer was "Florence Nightingale in pursuit of Willie Sutton" (a legendary bank robber). What united the bewildering miscellany of police jobs, from riot control to letting in householders who'd lost their keys, was that they potentially required the use of legitimate force. The police were the domestic organisation in which was concentrated the Leviathan state's monopoly of legitimate force. They were "equipped, entitled and required to deal with every exigency in which force may have to be used". They were "the fire to fight fire", using tainted means to resolve emergencies when this was necessary. Or as a 1992 episode of The Bill put it: "Force is part of the service."
Policy debates about policing have changed fundamentally in the past 20 years. For once, the shift can be dated quite precisely. It was made explicit in the police reform white paper published in 1993. Section 2.2 stated: "The main job of the police is to catch criminals." The rub came in the very next sentence: "In a typical day, however, only about 18% of calls to the police are about crime."
The view of policing as primarily concerned with catching criminals is utterly misconceived. It raises false expectations about what the police can do about crime, condemns them to a quixotic quest beyond their capacity, and neglects what people in practice demand from the police. Its apparent obviousness derives largely from media representations, the main source of "information" about crime and policing for most people. Media stories (both news and fictional) focus overwhelmingly on successful police investigations of very serious violent crimes, especially murder, which form only a small part of the police workload. And the police are spectacularly less successful in clearing up crimes than media stories suggest: far fewer than 2% of crimes result in a conviction.
A new can-do optimism about police capabilities accompanied the post-1993 focus on crime-fighting. Before that, police chiefs and policy-makers accepted that crime levels and patterns were mainly shaped by cultural and socioeconomic drivers beyond the influence of policing. At most, police could be expected to achieve justice in some individual cases, and to provide emergency first-aid relief for the distresses caused by crime. The post-1993 mood is captured by the boast by Bill Bratton, David Cameron's top cop: "Crime is down, blame the police."
Innovative policing tactics have certainly played some part in the dramatic falls in crime throughout the western world since the mid-1990s, primarily through evidence-led target protection. The symptoms of criminality were suppressed, not the causes. This is the rational kernel in the public's reluctance to accept that crime has indeed fallen: the risks remain intact, ready to bubble up if the lid is removed or the pressure in the kettle builds up. This seems to be confirmed by the orgy of looting when the opportunities presented themselves during the summer riots. It is also indicated by the recent increase in some property crime rates as the cuts really begin to bite.
The pressure on the police to deliver effective and businesslike crime control (to be monitored in future by elected single-issue police and crime commissioners) is a consequence of the politics of tough law and order in the wake of neoliberalism. The economics of Blatcherism simultaneously turned up the heat on the causes of criminality and hugely weakened the informal sources of social control that for more than a century had effectively held down crime and disorder, behind the media shadow-play of cops and robbers.
When called upon to deliver on the mythology of crime fighting, the thin blue line turned out to be a Maginot line. The most important address for crime control is not Scotland Yard but 11 Downing Street. What the police are really needed for is as the crucial emergency service for a host of troubles of which crime is only a small part.
This is the first of a series of pamphlets entitled What If …? published by the Howard League and the Mannheim Centre at the London School of Economics. They aim to challenge conventional thinking on penal issues. If you have ideas for future topics, please email the research director at anita.dockley@howardleague.org.
For decades, policy makers and criminologists have agonised over whether the police were fundamentally a force or a service. On one hand, research on what the police did, and on what the public called on the police to do, showed that much if not most of their work did not involve the use of their law enforcement powers. On the other, media representations and the culture of the police rank and file saw "real" police work as crime fighting.
Analytically, this conundrum was resolved by the theory formulated by the American sociologist Egon Bittner. The police officer was "Florence Nightingale in pursuit of Willie Sutton" (a legendary bank robber). What united the bewildering miscellany of police jobs, from riot control to letting in householders who'd lost their keys, was that they potentially required the use of legitimate force. The police were the domestic organisation in which was concentrated the Leviathan state's monopoly of legitimate force. They were "equipped, entitled and required to deal with every exigency in which force may have to be used". They were "the fire to fight fire", using tainted means to resolve emergencies when this was necessary. Or as a 1992 episode of The Bill put it: "Force is part of the service."
Policy debates about policing have changed fundamentally in the past 20 years. For once, the shift can be dated quite precisely. It was made explicit in the police reform white paper published in 1993. Section 2.2 stated: "The main job of the police is to catch criminals." The rub came in the very next sentence: "In a typical day, however, only about 18% of calls to the police are about crime."
The view of policing as primarily concerned with catching criminals is utterly misconceived. It raises false expectations about what the police can do about crime, condemns them to a quixotic quest beyond their capacity, and neglects what people in practice demand from the police. Its apparent obviousness derives largely from media representations, the main source of "information" about crime and policing for most people. Media stories (both news and fictional) focus overwhelmingly on successful police investigations of very serious violent crimes, especially murder, which form only a small part of the police workload. And the police are spectacularly less successful in clearing up crimes than media stories suggest: far fewer than 2% of crimes result in a conviction.
A new can-do optimism about police capabilities accompanied the post-1993 focus on crime-fighting. Before that, police chiefs and policy-makers accepted that crime levels and patterns were mainly shaped by cultural and socioeconomic drivers beyond the influence of policing. At most, police could be expected to achieve justice in some individual cases, and to provide emergency first-aid relief for the distresses caused by crime. The post-1993 mood is captured by the boast by Bill Bratton, David Cameron's top cop: "Crime is down, blame the police."
Innovative policing tactics have certainly played some part in the dramatic falls in crime throughout the western world since the mid-1990s, primarily through evidence-led target protection. The symptoms of criminality were suppressed, not the causes. This is the rational kernel in the public's reluctance to accept that crime has indeed fallen: the risks remain intact, ready to bubble up if the lid is removed or the pressure in the kettle builds up. This seems to be confirmed by the orgy of looting when the opportunities presented themselves during the summer riots. It is also indicated by the recent increase in some property crime rates as the cuts really begin to bite.
The pressure on the police to deliver effective and businesslike crime control (to be monitored in future by elected single-issue police and crime commissioners) is a consequence of the politics of tough law and order in the wake of neoliberalism. The economics of Blatcherism simultaneously turned up the heat on the causes of criminality and hugely weakened the informal sources of social control that for more than a century had effectively held down crime and disorder, behind the media shadow-play of cops and robbers.
When called upon to deliver on the mythology of crime fighting, the thin blue line turned out to be a Maginot line. The most important address for crime control is not Scotland Yard but 11 Downing Street. What the police are really needed for is as the crucial emergency service for a host of troubles of which crime is only a small part.
This is the first of a series of pamphlets entitled What If …? published by the Howard League and the Mannheim Centre at the London School of Economics. They aim to challenge conventional thinking on penal issues. If you have ideas for future topics, please email the research director at anita.dockley@howardleague.org.
And I would say YES for that. That's the unwanted truth among cops nowadays. There are lots of undisputed activities most police officers do rather than doing what their descriptive title entitles them.
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