Police Culture

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Culture is…

•Poly-vocal

•Opposite of nature

•Defined by Schweder as:

community specific ideas about what is true, good, valuable, beautiful ,

efficient etc…’

•A ‘collective’ concept: socially

inherited, customary and constitutive of way of life

•Every culture has ‘sub’ cultures

•Culture provides a common bond;

•Provides, reproduces tradition

Organizational Culture

Refers

to:

•system of

shared meanings

•common sense

of mission

•collective understanding

of what ought to be done and how

it ought to be done.

•Organizations, like individuals,

have ‘personalities’ that can be:

–rigid or flexible

–unfriendly or supportive

–innovative or

conservative

Ministerial Commission of Inquiry into

Police Culture: Main Features

•Commission

headed by

Dame Margaret Bazley

•Reviewed

all

claims of sexual assault by police (or associates) going

back to 1979

•Covered

total of 313

complaints of sexual assault against 222 police officers between 1979 and 2005.

•Of

these 141 contained

sufficient

evidence to lay

criminal charges or

undertake disciplinary

action.

•Reviewed

61

allegations against 43 associates of the police of which 39 resulted in charges or

warnings.

•Inquiry cost $4

million &

released its 300

page report in April 2007

Ministerial Inquiry into Police Culture: Main Conclusions

1.Evidence

of

disgraceful conduct by police officers

2. Officers protecting perpetrators

-

evidence of turning

‘ blind

eye’ to

inappropriate sexual activity

3. ‘Wall

of

silence’; negative

stereotypes

& culture of scepticism to

complaints & complainants

4. Such

misconduct relatively rare but poses

significant risk

to public confidence

5. NZ Police

should

give high

priority to minimising

risk; when it occurs deal with it professionally &

expeditiously - in manner that gives no reason

for concern

6. Disturbed

that police

didn’t have ‘code of conduct’ - clear guidance

on appropriate

behaviour -

esp. appropriate sexual behaviour

To

maintain

public trust/credibility

police

must

adhere to

high stds of

ethical behaviour

on & off duty

Born or Made?

Born

-

1960s Neiderhoffer’s

research suggested:

•Policing

appealed to those in working class with conservative & authoritarian

personalities

•Once

joined nature of job heightened existing

attitudes of cynicism and isolation – isolation a recurrent theme

•Abrahamsen & Strype (2010)

found some personality differences - emotional stability & lack of

openness to new experience

•But also suggest existing

research

is inconsistent

•Some have

found evidence of a police personality – others haven’t

•Psychological research

ambiguous &

hampered

by

problems of definition & measurement

Made -

•A learning

process: acquire attitudes & values of organisation

•On

the job ‘learning’ critical: art and craft of policing

‘Inescapable’ features of the ‘job’ that

shape informal police subculture

(Reiner, 1991)

•Police embodiment of

social & legal

authority

•Managing potential

dangerousness

•Under

pressure to

achieve results without violating

due process

of law

Main elements of police

culture

•police sense

of mission

•action and excitement

•cult of masculinity

• ‘us/them’ division

•authoritarian conservatism

•suspiciousness

Key attributes of police

organisational

culture

•Conventionality

•Avoidance

behaviour

•Oppositional

behaviour

•A ‘blame’

culture

(van De Hayden 1997)

Issues with police culture/sub-culture

•over-reliance on ‘police

culture’ as explanatory

variable.

•cultural ‘determinism’

•organisational culture

versus individual

acculturation