Police Practice and Research An International Journal ISSN: 1561-4263 (Print) 1477-271X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gppr20 Switching on, switching off: reflections of a practitioner researcher examining the operational behaviour of police officers Ross Hendy To cite this article: Ross Hendy (2018): Switching on, switching off: reflections of a practitioner researcher examining the operational behaviour of police officers, Police Practice and Research, DOI: 10.1080/15614263.2018.1558585 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2018.1558585 Published online: 18 Dec 2018. Submit your article to this journal View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gppr20 POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH https://doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2018.1558585 REFLECTION PAPER Switching on, switching off: reflections of a practitioner researcher examining the operational behaviour of police officers Ross Hendya,b a Constable, New Zealand Police, Wellington, New Zealand; bInstitute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Evidence-based policing is rapidly becoming adopted by policing agencies among policing jurisdictions. Many academic programmes have been established in higher education to train police managers in applied criminology. However, there is a lack of literature for police officer practitioner researchers (POPR) who might undertake qualitative research, especially research projects that examine police behaviour. This paper reflects on the changing role of the practitioner-researcher and suggests that police officers undertaking qualitative research need to learn to ‘switch off their police role’ and ‘switch on their researcher role’. The author’s insights are drawn from his own experience of qualitative fieldwork working with police officers from New Zealand Police and South Australian Police. Police; Police research; Practitioner research; New Zealand Police; South Australia Police Introduction In recent times, the interest in evidence-based policing research at practitioner management level has increased. This can be seen in the emergence of organisations such as the Society of EvidenceBased Policing, the Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidenced-Based Policing (Sherman & Murray, 2015), and the American Society of Evidenced-Based Policing, among others. Increasingly, academic programmes that encourage practitioners to take an evidence-led approach to policing problems have also flourished, as has a growing literature of ‘doing’ evidence-based policing and police research (Brown et al., 2018; Brunger, Tong, & Martin, 2016; Knutsson & Tompson, 2017; Lum & Koper, 2017). Research-training modules aim to deliver advice on research methodology and data analysis, yet there is an absence of guidance for practitioners who wish to collect data in the field in situ. As such, the growing appetite for practitioner-led research (Brown et al., 2018; Huey & Mitchell, 2016; Willis, 2016) necessitates further thought about ‘cops doing research’. While the literature considers ethnographic methods such as participant observation (e.g. Hammersley, 1992; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Westmarland, 2016) or systematic social observation (e.g. Reiss, 1971; Worden & McLean, 2014) there is a lack of advice for how sworn police officers might approach the collection of ‘evidence’ for ‘research’ from the field. This paper begins to address this gap in the literature. It is directed at practitioners who plan to conduct empirical research, especially those who wish to research the behaviour of their colleagues in the field. It aims to provide a starting point for practitioners to consider some risks inherent in police research and how one might overcome them. This paper also aims to demonstrate that while CONTACT Ross Hendy rhendy@mac.com © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 2 R. HENDY police officers may find themselves in a privileged position to conduct research of police practice, they are not immune to the problems associated with ‘insider research’ and may be confronted with problems unique to their workplace. Why might these aims be of interest to broader fields of police scholarship? Discussions about the research of police practice by police employees published in the literature, including the evaluation of how crime analysts may advance evidenced-based policing (e.g. Piza & Feng, 2017), the development of ‘police pracademics’ (Huey & Mitchell, 2016; Willis, 2016) and how ‘pracademics’ may advance crime analysis (Braga, 2016). Indeed, Brown et al. (2018) envisage that the ‘modern’ police officer requires an academic education to equip the officer with an awareness of how theory contextualises practice. This paper does not duplicate these discussions; it aims to expand the discourse by raising issues specific to the collection of data from the field. Like all researchers, officers must take care when collecting data. Equally, such insights should also be of benefit for non-practitioner researchers who interrogate data collected by sworn officers. Policymakers may find value in considering the legal and ethical complexities for constabulary or sworn officers conducting research in the field. Policing and criminological scholars may find value in understanding the challenges that a practitioner researcher may face in the field. Indeed, nonpractitioners who supervise research students at graduate level may value the insights to improve pastoral guidance of their students. In sum, the issues raised in this paper will have value for all scholars of policing and those with interests in research methodology. Police doing research in the field Well-crafted practitioner research has aided the understanding of police officer behaviour and the complexities of officer decision-making. Notable contributions include insights into the work of police officers, such as street policing (Brown, 1981), arrest and custody (Holdaway, 1983), criminal investigation (Young, 1991), as well as untangling police occupational cultures (Waddington, 1999), operational cultures (Crank, 1998) and observing police-centric phenomena such as officer cynicism (Niederhoffer, 1967).1 These demonstrate how insider-research may prevail against the ‘secretive, complex, and violent’ police setting (as described in Manning, 2014) to provide revealing insights about officer behaviour. A police officer practitioner researcher (POPR) may face challenges when conducting research in police operational settings. First, officers may be confronted with the competing priorities of research practice and policing practice. Police occupational-based training tends to focus on the application of law enforcement techniques rather than the exploration and critical reflection of social phenomena (Brown, 1988; Christopher, 2015; Epp, Maynard-Moody, & Haider-Markel, 2014). Some training exposes officers to methods that have utility for law enforcement or problem-solving purposes (Hendy, 2018; Lum & Koper, 2017) and research settings. Cognitive interviewing is one example of how information collection methods have utility in operational and research settings (see Schollum, 2005; Waddington, Badger, & Bull, 2006). However, an inconvenient truth for the POPR is that modern police officers investigate social interaction to determine culpability rather than to identify mechanisms that might explain social phenomena (e.g. Hendy, 2018; Maguire, 2011). While not necessarily mutually exclusive (see Hallenberg, ONeill, & Tong, 2016), incompatibilities between criminal investigation and primary research are revealed in their respective codes of practice (Skinns, Wooff, & Sprawson, 2016; Westmarland, 2016). Research codes of practice provide safeguards for research participants, avoiding situations or behaviour that would cause harm, obtaining informed consent, voluntary participation, confidentiality, privacy, and anonymity (Bachman & Schutt, 2014; Skinns et al., 2016). The criminal justice process, however, relies on arrest, detention, curtailment of individual rights and freedom, interrogation, cross-examination, and incarceration. Second, officers may not have developed a temperament conducive to field research. Bachman and Schutt suggest that research fieldwork is ‘. . .much more art than science’ as it ‘flows more from POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 3 the researcher’s own personality and natural approach to other people than from formal training’ (2014, p. 251). Similar arguments have been made about police work (e.g. Brown, 1998). Researchers studying police behaviour have stressed the importance of their ability to form interpersonal relationships with participants, building rapport with the gatekeepers of knowledge (see Holdaway, 2983; Young, 1991) to facilitate the collection of useful data (Manning, 2014; Mastrofski, Parks, & McCluskey, 2013). Indeed, Manning (2014) explains that while ethnographic fieldwork with police ‘. . . brings together a secretive, violent, complex, and traditionally organised occupation in an organisational context with a researcher or a research team’ (p.532) it offers to the researcher the opportunity to learn how practitioners make sense and solve of the problems they face in the occupational context. Furthermore, police field research is associated with risks to personal safety. Marks (2003) drew attention to the risk to her safety during ethnographic research with South African police: researchers do not necessarily receive formal tactical training nor have access to weapons for self-defence during fieldwork but may find themselves in the life-threatening circumstances. Indeed, the complications experienced during Decker and Van Winkle’s (1996) research – where researchers witnessed the shooting of gang members while conducting field research – give pause for thought. While police officers have equipment for safety, self-defence (e.g. Marks, 2003) and coercion (e.g. Muir, 1977), field researchers have their voice and their feet. Third, practitioner-researchers face complexities associated with conducting work-place research. Practitioner-researchers have privileged access to research their organisation but their membership status of the researched environment and the relationship status may be problematic with the researched population (Costley, Elliot & Gibbs, 2010). For instance, as with other qualitative methods, the main purpose of a qualitative interview is to ‘glean unguarded confidences’ (Costley et al., 2010 p.41). As a POPR does not exit the field in the same manner as a non-practitioner (Reed & Procter, 1995; Young, 1991), the POPR must consider the impact of how their possession of data affects ongoing relationships with their colleagues. For example, the publication of adverse findings may affect the ongoing employability of colleagues and restrict opportunities for honest exchange during future interviews. The POPR faces further complications if he or she observes undesirable behaviour (e.g. Loftus, 2009), police malpractice, or illegal behaviour (e.g. Rowe, 2007). Nonpractitioners have written of the quandaries to report or not report observed malfeasance (e.g. Norris, 1993; Punch, 1979). However, POPRs are further burdened with the decision to balance their obligation to report such behaviour with the consequences of workplace relationships associated with the reporting of allegations (Paoline & Terrill, 2013). This paper sets out four issues that the POPR may face when conducting fieldwork. First, though, the paper sketches out a context for how non-practitioner and practitioner researchers experience the policing environment. Written from a practitioner’s perspective, I hope to provide a context for the POPR within the Academe to illustrate how my relationship with the field affected my ability to collect accurate and utilious data. Simply, it is a discussion of how I had to switch off the police officer role in order to switch on the researcher role to illuminate four problems that appear to be specific to those that a POPR may face when conducting fieldwork. First, POPRs may struggle to establish a clear epistemological foundation in light of the confused epistemological and ontological processes that are pervasive in the criminal justice system. Second, POPRs may overlook the importance of critically assessing narratives from police officer research participants. Third, POPRs may find it difficult to control the urge to participate – passively or actively – during police-citizen encounters. Fourth, POPRs need to be cognisant of how their status and rank will be perceived by the research participants. A reflective approach Like Holdaway (1983) and Young (1991), the reflections outlined in this paper have emerged from the context of a period of policing practice, and like Punch (1979), Marks (2003), and Rowe (2007), a period of empirical research in the field. Before commencing the present research project, I had seven years’ experience in frontline policing, with duties including first response, 4 R. HENDY basic criminal investigation, and road policing. During this time, I conducted research for a master’s dissertation (Hendy, 2014), but the present study, however, was undertaken during an extended period of study leave. That research incorporated a cross-national approach to examine conflict resolution behaviour of routinely unarmed police officers from New Zealand with that of the routinely armed police officers from South Australia (Hendy, 2018). The study incorporated theoretical frameworks from conflict theory (Lanza-Kaduce & Greenleaf, 1994; Turk, 1969), general systems theory (Sykes & Brent, 1980), strain theory (Agnew, 2006), and conflictresolution theory (Deutsch, 1973). It used qualitative and quantitative methods: including participant observation, systematic social observation of police-citizen encounters, real-time coding of police-citizen behaviours in situ, psychometric measures of participating officers, and some semistructured interviews. The research took an interpretative approach to police officer behaviour with participant officers. The collection of field data occurred over an eight-month period amounting to 800 observational hours over 93 patrol shifts and 276 police-citizen encounters with 93 officers. Costley, Elliot, and Gibbs (2010) suggest that reflective practice ‘. . . is the ability to think about what you are doing whilst you are doing it’ (p.118). In the present case, my reflections considered how the routinized behaviour of a police officer risked the validity and reliability of data collection during fieldwork. These reflections arose from contemplation arising from moments of deliberate and spontaneous self-evaluation; often self-initiated at the end of a patrol shift and compiled at the end of the fieldwork. Other scholars researching police in the field have reflected about difficulties in obtaining access (e.g. Marks, 2003; Rowe, 2007), the utility and reliability of data from police officers (e.g. Cain, 1973; Sollund, 2005), the nature of informed consent (e.g. Holdaway, 1983; Rowe, 2007), researcher burnout (Schulenberg, 2012), the ethical dilemmas relating to malpractice and illegal behaviour (e.g. Norris, 1993; Punch, 1979; Rowe, 2007); and police insider researchers have considered how their insider status have advantaged their ability to ‘pierce the protective shield’ of their colleagues’ minds (Young, 1991). A police officer practitioner researcher (POPR) As a practitioner, I see the world I work in through the eyes of a ‘doer’, rather than a ‘watcher’. This distinction feels important: I regularly encounter opinions and perspectives from those who watch police officers (i.e. non-practitioners) that seem to be at odds with my own experiences and opinions. Therefore, I am always conscious of establishing the practitioner/ non-practitioner perspectives when contemplating policing-research and the wider police literature. Different perspectives I recall two notable examples that illustrate differences in the perspective of practitioners and nonpractitioners. The first comes from a discussion I had with a highly-experienced non-practitioner researcher who had recently participated in a police training exercise. The non-practitioner had been a part of a ‘protest group’ that was being ‘moved on’ by a public order team.2 At the end of the exercise, the non-practitioner swapped roles and became part of the public order team. The non-practitioner reflected that he was surprised at the level of physical contact he used when working to move along members of the protest group. He had not realised, until actively participating, the level of force used by officers (although trifling) to facilitate the movement of the protest group. This example, then, highlights some of the challenges of non-practitioner research: watching is not the same as doing. Sometimes, the subtle actions of the doer can be missed by the watcher. The second example relates to the way I was often introduced to research participants while conducting the present research. During one introduction at the New Zealand research site, my POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 5 briefing preamble was supplemented by one of the team’s supervisors remarking: ‘Don’t worry guys, remember he is “one of us”.’ Similarly, a briefing given by the supervisors at the South Australian research site introduced me as a New Zealand police officer. Often, supervisors would explain that I had operational experience and understood the practicalities of policing on the street. In another instance, the supervisor led a discussion that, as a practitioner, I was likely to understand the use of controlling-type behaviour in certain circumstances where a nonpractitioner may not: from assertive language, such as swearing, through to the use of physical force. As such, these preambles indicated to me that the officers observed a distinction between a practitioner and non-practitioner, or perhaps more aptly between an insider and outsider, and this was used to promote a level of acceptance amongst the members of the team (see e.g. Cockcroft, 2013; Reiner, 2010). These examples indicate a division of role which is not necessarily policing-specific. Consider the following observation of Reed and Procter (1995) about differences between practitioner researchers and academic researchers in health care: Practitioner researchers are people who are part of the world that they are researching in a way that an academic researcher cannot be. Academic researchers may become part of a culture for the period of the research, but practitioner researchers are part of the culture both before and afterwards. They have a history and a future in that culture: indeed, this is their culture. Their commitment to developing knowledge and understanding will necessarily be motivated by their position in this culture. This position clearly makes their perspective very different from that of the traditional researcher, and yet they will find little recognition of their problems, or even their existence, in most writing on research methodology (Reed & Procter, 1995, p. 5). Membership roles The question of the researcher’s relationship to, and membership role within, the population being researched is a topic of discussion in the methodological literature (e.g. P. A. Adler & Adler, 1987). For many discussions of practitioner-based research, distinctions are often binary – such as the insider-outsider dyad (e.g. Corbin Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). However, Brown (1996) suggests an insider-outsider paradigm to describe police researchers is somewhat superficial. She suggests that the division between those who hold and those who do not hold the status of a sworn police officer (i.e. those employees who hold powers of the constable) adds a further level of complexity (Brown, 1996): an ‘insider insider’ being a current sworn police officer conducting police research; an ‘outsider insider’ formally a sworn officer now working as an academic; an ‘insider outsider’, a civilian employed by the police; and an ‘outsider outsider’, a civilian not working for the police, such as an academic. Brown’s (1996) view that status correlates with access to knowledge within a policing organisation, as well as the level of support given by members within the organisation, rings true. Thinking as an ‘insider insider’, I concede that a researcher’s membership status may impede his or her ability to navigate through a murky path to obtain honest and frank views from police officers. For instance, I would feel much more comfortable, and therefore be less resistant to, being observed by another practitioner as opposed to a non-practitioner. Consider some narratives describing police behaviour in the policing literature that prompt concern. Westmarland (2001) criticised an apparent excessive use of police violence after completing an extended period of participant observation with police officers. In one narrative vignette, she referred to the actions of officers interacting with an unconscious suicidal male: ‘[o]ne of the officers slapped the man’s face and violently crushed his ear lobe, shouting at him to “wake up”’ (Westmarland, 2001, p. 525). Westmarland suggested that the officer’s behaviour was an attempt to ‘lighten the situation or as a revenge due to loss of temper’ (ibid) due to being called out to the incident late in the night. Yet many emergency response professionals may consider the behaviour of these officers as normal techniques to assess a patient’s level of consciousness (Barlow, 2012). Westmarland’s observation is narrated as an example of an excessive or undesirable use of force by police officers when there is reasonable operational explanation for the observed behaviour. 6 R. HENDY Similarly, Loftus (2009) describes an incident where multiple police units attended a domestic violence incident, in which an intoxicated male was reported to be behaving in a violent manner. Her predominant explanation for the large number of police units arriving at the incident was that: “Officers saw such occasions as an opportunity to use their physical strength [. . .] and I did note that an unnecessary large number of patrols would arrive at the location. However when it became apparent that there was little chance of confrontation, officers soon lost interest and tried to ‘bat’ (pass on) the incident to an unfortunate colleague” (Loftus, 2009, p. 115). Loftus (2009) applies this incident to illustrate her thesis that police culture is dominated by masculine, action-prone enthusiasts who rush to incidents in order to seek danger and excitement and then suggests that officers leave only when they realise that the sense of danger or excitement has receded and to avoid resolving the incident. Loftus’ field note reads ‘Given that the evening had so far been quiet, five patrols turned up to the incident’ (Loftus, 2009, p. 133). An alternate explanation might simply be that officers identified additional risks in attending this incident and therefore chose to assist. The presence of an uncooperative and intoxicated person at an incident is known to increase the risk of police officer safety (see Ellis, Choi, & Blaus, 1993). Loftus’ analysis overlooks this alternative perspective: the arrival of additional officers reflects operational risk in the minds of the officers. Both Westmarland (2001) and Loftus (2009) evidence Reed and Procter’s argument. The ‘academic researcher’ (i.e. the non-practitioner) may have different perspectives to practitionerresearchers when interpreting the behaviour of practitioners. While Loftus and Westmarland were at the beginning of their academic research careers the weight of their contributions to the literature were not insignificant. However, the lack of alternative explanations for the behaviour observed during their fieldwork, or a discussion with their research participants to explore the meaning behind their actions presents a weakness in their arguments. As a practitioner, I question how their constructions were construed: unfamiliarity, incompetence, or bias? On the other hand, as a researcher, I have considered whether their perspective is one of misinterpretation, or indeed a valid interpretation aligned with their world-view. Nonetheless, both Westmarland (2001) and Loftus (2009) illustrate the risk of forming assumptions about behaviour through a single lens, without adopting a robust strategy of methodological triangulation (Creswell, 2014) to test their interpretations of the motives of their subjects (cf. Muir, 1977). The police researcher The process of familiarisation with the field can be problematic for scholars. One particularly relevant aspect of the complexity of police research is the experience of ‘culture shock’ (e.g. see Schulenberg, 2012). Here culture shock is not necessarily a reaction to working with police officers or police workplace culture, but more the reaction to policing and police work (cf. Westmarland, 2016). Indeed, I recall experiencing a culture shock during my transition from non-practitioner to practitioner. I was faced with the realisation of the existence of antagonistic attitudes towards police officers and police authority that was contrary to my own non-practitioner experience. Being the recipient of insults such as ‘Fuck the Police’, ‘fuckin’ police cunt’, or even the more benign reference to ‘pigs’, took time to acclimatise to. Indeed, I demonstrated the problem of how verbal abuse can affect their memory recall to the audience at a research symposium. After carefully preparing the audience for a ‘tiny experiment’, about half of the audience were aghast when I accused them being ‘fucking cunts’ while the other half sniggered and commented that in some social circles such a remark would be considered a compliment or an affectionate term of endearment. Ten minutes later, a straw poll of the audience revealed that those who had been offended by the initial comment expressed that they remained shocked that I had sworn at the audience and admitted that their ability to concentrate on the proceeding discussion had thus been diminished. I had been able to crudely illustrate how culture shock can affect memory recall POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 7 and thus one’s ability to perform as an effective field researcher. Those who did not report being offended suffered no-such cognitive impediment. Of course, incivilities or culture shock are not limited to the police environment (see e.g. Bottoms, 2006; Waddington et al., 2006). Other environments may be equally difficult or unpleasant for a non-practitioner ethnographer: participant observation of civil enforcement, mortuary procedures (coping with foul odours and unpleasant visual procedures) or firefighting (coping with the danger and extreme heat) may have associated difficulties. However, over time, the ad hoc researcher who continues to conduct field research might develop a more meaningful understanding of the field through greater familiarisation. Going native At the other extreme, a common theme in the literature concerning ethnographic research warns of the danger of ‘going native’ (see e.g. Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Schulenberg, 2012; Sollund, 2005). Hammersley and Atkinson suggest that going native occurs when ‘the task of analysis [is] abandoned in favour of the joys of participation, but even when it is retained bias may arise from “over-rapport”’ (2007, p.110). Sollund (2005) proffers that police studies’ scholars are especially susceptible to going native as the researcher shares with officers the excitement of attending urgent police incidents, suffering the boredom of downtime, and conversationalbonding while driving on patrol. However, I take the view that participant observers ought to share the mental and physical experience of practitioners, while resisting the temptation of abandonment. The experiences described above by Sollund are in fact worthy of experiencing (also see Westmarland, 2016). In the case of researching police officers, the opportunity to experience the same level of excitement attending urgent police duties, the effect of physical exhaustion and heightened levels of adrenaline, may provide the researcher with a different level of understanding – perhaps a more accurate understanding – of the pressures incumbent on the research subject. As such, those who conduct participant observation need to be as mobile, agile and fit as the officers they are studying. During my fieldwork, I was engaged in several foot chases through crowded pedestrian and vehicle areas. These foot chases were sprints, not at a leisurely jogging pace, and ended with all involved in an adrenaline-high state. Occasionally I had to navigate through inhospitable terrain and climb over fences to access secluded locations. On two occasions I had to scale a 2.5 metre fence. I have also had to contend with a male who attempted to take one of my data recording devices from my hands while I was ‘tapping in’ field notes. This attempt was made as I was standing against a shop wall, facing onto the street; a male walked up to me and placed his right hand on my phone. Using a single-handed gesture, he moved his right hand over my device and attempted to dislodge it from my grip. This took no more than one second, and when he realised that he could not secure the device he smiled and moved on. As such, the researcher who intends to participate in police research in the field needs to share the physical traits of those being researched. Policing experts However, over time the emerging researcher may form positive police practitioner-researcher partnerships with practitioners and police management. Such researchers benefit from these partnerships and sometimes gain more readily available access to empirical data or work with police agencies to improve policing practice (Rojek, Smith, & Alpert, 2012). Over time, these researchers may become policing experts, becoming familiar with the policing environment (see e.g. Knutsson, 2010). Yet while these policing experts will have benefited greatly from their unparalleled access to research data, including human observational data, they remain an ‘outsider’ in the eyes of the practitioner. Although they may have developed an expert knowledge of 8 R. HENDY policing, they will not have worked operationally under the same legal or behavioural scrutiny that police officers have; their policing experience will be different to those who have had operational policing experience. In some cases, practitioners will leave policing and become former-practitioner-researchers. For example, the careers of Holdaway and Waddington show how police officers who take academic positions outside of the police organisation can contribute to policing scholarship in innovative and enlightening ways. As former practitioners they can leverage their operational experience and have the potential to investigate police practice from an insider’s perspective. Similarly, former practitioners have an enhanced ability to uncover what is ‘locked away in the heads of police officers’ (Young, 1991, p. 19). Former practitioners can be afforded a greater level of respect or status than non-practitioners. Practitioner researchers Within policing, practitioner researchers may be divided into two categories. The civilianpractitioner will most likely be non-operational, such as an analyst or evidential technician (Brown, 1996). They will have limited investigatory powers, if any, and will have no power of arrest. In most cases, these practitioners will have limited policing experience with members of the public. They may be afforded a similar awareness of police data as former practitioners, such as the prolonged exposure within the police agency and familiarity with officers, but still may not be accepted to the same degree as a police officer practitioner researcher (POPR). In most cases, the POPR will have gained knowledge of policing through kinaesthesia – the process of learning through doing (Chan, 1996; Westmarland, 2001). This sets them aside from non-practitioners who might have formed their knowledge of policing through observation or reading of the literature. Many rank-and-file practitioners subscribe to the view that ‘you can’t understand policing from a book’ and will construct notions of ‘best practice policing’ and ‘real-world policing’ (e.g. Bostrom, 2005). As practitioners, they will have experienced the unpredictability, immediacy, and asymmetric nature of policing. They will afford little credibility towards ad-hoc researchers or ‘wannabes’ and probably initially distrust policing experts from practitionerresearch partnerships, through a fear or distrust of any interaction or involvement from management. The police officer practitioner researcher, then, is an individual who is a sworn police officer who researches police practice. They can be seen as distinct from ‘academic researchers’ as they identify with, and participate fully in, the culture they research (Reed & Procter, 1995). They are ‘insiders’ (Reed & Procter, 1995) but they are also ‘insider-insiders’ (Brown, 1996) as they maintain ‘complete membership’ of their cultural group (P. A. Adler & Adler, 1987). The work of the POPR may not always be valued by other practitioners (see Holdaway, 1983; Holgersson, 2015). Bostrom (2005), for example, shows how some officers distinguish between the utility of ‘book smarts’ and ‘street smarts’. Paoline, Terrill, and Rossler (2015) provide detailed discussion of North American attitudes towards college-educated police officers and, Christopher (2015) shows that similar attitudes exist in the British context. As mentioned above, POPRs face a unique set of technical problems when researching other police officers. Police officers have statutory powers and obligations where non-practitioner researchers do not. Police officers are subject to systems of legal and professional oversight where non-practitioner researchers are not. As such, the POPR faces legal and ethical dilemmas that are arguably more ‘prickly’ when a police-officer-practitioner sets out to research the behaviour of their colleagues. For instance, many police agencies require mandatory reporting of the excess use of force. Failure to do so can lead to employment termination. Non-practitioner researchers are under no such obligation: at most, the question of reporting of excess use of force is an ethical consideration (e.g. see Norris, 1993) rather than a legal consideration. POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 9 My intention in setting out this stratified view of police researchers is to show that the award of a research degree does not necessarily equip a non-practitioner with the skills and experience requisite to study police behaviour. Advanced methodological training may provide a nonpractitioner with a greater understanding of research practice, but it does not provide adequate familiarisation with the field to form adequate understanding of police behaviour. This poses a risk to the validity of data interpretation and analysis. Equally, I do not suggest that the insiderinsider status necessarily equips the practitioner with the requisite skills to conduct an empirical study of police behaviour. The proposition is, therefore, that the POPR – insider-insider status with advanced academic research training – is afforded different access to the field and thus has the potential to provide a different perspective to the study of police behaviour. Switching on/switching off An unexpected irony realised during my fieldwork was the necessity to stop behaving like a police officer and start behaving like a researcher. This insight became galvanised in my own mind when I attempted to answer a question from an inquisitive research subject: ‘So what is it like doing research?’ I responded by saying ‘I have to stop being a cop.’ I explained that I had learnt that I needed to ‘switch off’, or stop the police role, in order to observe. The irony was, of course, lost to my colleague, as he had not read my original research proposal, which stated: ‘One of the merits of practitioner-based research was that the practitioner has the potential to develop a more meaningful understanding of the field than the non-practitioner’. In practice, however, I reflected that although my status afforded me privileged access to both research sites, it could affect the way in which I collected and interpreted the research data. Switching on Fieldwork is a subjective methodology. It employs subjective means to study subjective phenomenon. If we want to get the closest to understanding the human actor in the human world, what Weber (1968) calls the “interpretative understanding of social action” and what Schultz (1967) calls the “subjective meaningcontexts,” we need to channel and marshal our efforts in this direction. To do this we must employ subjectivity, involvement, and commitment (P. A. Adler & Adler, 1987). Subjectivity, objectivity As a policing practitioner, my epistemological perspective is largely shaped by the criminal justice system: officers collect information as evidence to establish a single objective narrative (Maguire, 2011; Rowe, 2013). These narratives are not only used to construct prosecution cases but are also used in official reports of incidents. Unlike prosecution cases, where the police case is tested in court, the reports of crime are largely untested. These report-narratives are presumed to be objective, yet they often rely on subjective interpretations of events. This process, then, of attending an incident (or in fact taking a report of an incident at a police station), interpreting the verbal or written witness accounts, and constructing the accounts into a narrative, becomes normative. Not only do police officers follow a process to construct prosecutions, but they also have a monopolistic power to provide authoritative narratives of incidents (Rowe, 2013). Such narratives are based on an assessment of available ‘evidence’ which conclude with an officer’s account of an incident. During the prosecution process the court is presented with evidence to support this view, and ultimately the court passes judgement as to whether the narrative, beyond reasonable doubt, is reliable and therefore ‘truthful’. It is only at the prosecution stage that such authoritative narratives can be challenged when the accused is provided with a forum to provide counter- 10 R. HENDY arguments. Even so, the process is still one of objective discovery: the court seeks to determine a singular objective narrative (either that of the prosecution or defence). In the pursuit of the singular objective narrative, contradictory evidence or information may confound an officer’s ability to form such a narrative. A common example is the ‘he-said/she-said’ incident where one party explains a course of events that is inconsistent with the explanation of the other. In the absence of an independent witness, or corroborating evidence, it becomes very difficult to establish the singular objective narrative. It is at this point where officers ‘living in an objective world’, can fail to construct the single objective narrative. When this occurs, I have seen officers become disappointed, almost exhibiting a sense of failure for being unable to establish the ‘facts’ of the matter. As such, the epistemological perspective of POPR is likely to be challenging and confused, especially those who consider qualitative methodologies. Epistemological and ontological scholarship explores different perspectives on knowledge and meaning (e.g. see Crotty, 1998; Schwandt, 1998). Constructivists take an approach that suggests there is no objective truth awaiting discovery; knowledge and meaning are constructed through interaction with those active in the world being studied. Objectivists take the view that knowledge and meaning exist without any human interpretation or constructionism; it is there, waiting to be discovered. Subjectivists see knowledge and meaning as deriving from interaction between the subject and object (Crotty, 1998). The normative police practitioner investigative approach could be seen to fit all three of the above: interpretative and, in some cases, the constructivist, yet presented in an objective manner. Data verification and research bias The policing literature explores the phenomena of canteen culture and the sharing of workplace anecdotes (van Hulst, 2013; Waddington, 1999) where police officers share stories among each other as informal methods of instruction and celebration of police craft (Shearing & Ericson, 1991). Although there is controversy as to whether the canteen discussions should be taken at face value, the question remains of how a researcher would best approach the verification of oral statements and self-report data. As such, the POPR should be mindful of this and not necessarily believe what police officer research participants say. This, of course, should not be any different to the approach of any researcher; a little scepticism is helpful. For instance, during one New Zealand Police shift, I recall the members of the patrol I accompanied sharing a narrative of their shift with others. At the end of the shift, we boasted how busy the shift had been. The shift had included an aeroplane crash on a local beach, a vehicle pursuit, and the arrest of a juvenile for an assault on his caregiver. The sequence of the conversation included anecdotes of how we rushed to the scene of the air crash, parked the patrol car and crashed our way through dense beach vegetation to get to the scene. The conversation then moved to an account of ‘blue-lighting’ (driving in emergency response mode), involving the attempt to catch up to a driver who had been party to a domestic incident. Seeing in the distance what we believed to be the driver’s vehicle, we set off in pursuit. In the course of the chase, we came over a small rise that dipped, suddenly and sharply, into a ford. Unfortunately, the road signs to alert the driver to the ford were missing and we were all taken by surprise. The speed at which we were travelling resulted in feeling as if we had become airborne, although this was not the case. The final job had involved responding to an incident where a special-needs 16-year-old male had assaulted his caregiver and smashed a window at his residential facility. While these narratives were factual – nothing was fabricated – the way in which the narrative was presented gave an impression of an eventful shift. In reality, the narrative comprised of a series of shift highlights. For instance, while the aeroplane crash required an emergency response, the officers were not the first on the scene and they spent most of their time providing a cordon around the crash and speaking to witnesses. Once free from the crash, they spent time searching for the vehicle of interest and, although we were certain we saw the vehicle ahead of us POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 11 at one point (from about 500 metres), we were unable to catch up to it. Likewise, once we had arrived at the scene of the assault, the male was relatively calm (although somewhat uncooperative) and the arrest process was routine. The importance of this example is to note differences between the impression of an initial account given by officers and the subsequent detail of the incidents. As an active member of this group, POPRs need to be aware of the need to not rely on initial accounts of incidents, as officers are likely to provide the most exciting parts of any incident first. POPRs must remember to ask probing questions to generate further elaboration of narratives. The non-practitioner researcher might ordinarily ask such questions, as they might be experiencing this new world for the first time, whereas the POPR may be more inclined to participate in these ‘backstage performances’ (Waddington, 1999). Switching off Backing off One of the first lessons I learnt during the pilot phase of the study was to resist the temptation of engaging in encounters which I would normally be drawn into. Officers are called to intervene between people behaving in an argumentative or assaultive manner. Police training and operational experience equip officers to intervene with people engaged in this behaviour, to an extent where intervention becomes normalised. Therefore, as a practitioner researcher, it is very easy to propel oneself into such situations, in a way that a non-practitioner might not. I experienced this reaction during the pilot phase of the fieldwork after finding myself at little more than ‘arm’s length’ from a tense police-citizen encounter. Although I had not started to consider a physical intervention, I found myself standing in formation with the lead contact officer, as I would normally have done had I been on duty, as part of a controlling triangular stance. At first, I did not realise that I moved into a position of influence. I was trying to position myself to maximise my observation and code the encounter. However, when I turned to find the second officer, I noted that he was behind me and I realised that I had inadvertently taken his position. Afterwards I considered possible explanations for my behaviour. Firstly, as this was my first attempt to collect data of conflict-encounter in situ, I had inadvertently reverted to my normalised behaviour. Second, I wanted to ensure that I could collect accurate visual and aural data so it was important to be in a position to allow this to happen. Third, I felt that I may have wanted the officers who I was working with to be reminded that although I was an observer, I was comfortable in the field. I felt it was important to gain credibility and rapport with the officers. However, I also reflected that my behaviour ran the risk of interfering with the accurate observation and dynamics of the encounter. For instance, my proximity with the citizen during the encounter not only affected the involvement of the second officer present, but also indicated to the officers present that I was taking an active role in the encounter. My position limited the ability of the second officer to move freely into the support position, because I was there. As part of my detailed briefing, held at the beginning of each patrol shift, I outlined my responsibilities to the police research participants. Part of that discussion was to advise officers that my role is that of an observer, not as another police officer. As such, I should not be expected to assist by doing ‘police work’ during police-citizen encounters. This also served as a reminder to myself of my role: as an observer not a participant. However, strict adherence to this rule was problematic. Although the status of my employment with New Zealand Police was clear – I was on leave without pay – I did not cease to hold the office of constable, and as such I was still obliged to uphold the responsibilities espoused by the constabulary oath.3 As such, it becomes problematic if I observe an offence being committed which is unobserved by the officers I am accompanying. As the offence is unobserved by the officers, it would be my duty to intervene. This could be to either advise the officers of the presence of an offence, or, if they were unable to take 12 R. HENDY action, I would be obliged to intervene directly. Failure to do so might result in a case of dereliction of duty. This is a common problem with officers who observe offences being committed whilst they are off-duty. However, in the case of the research setting, intervening may harm the researcher-subject relationship (as discussed above), as well as a posing a risk to my own safety. Ironically, I only found myself in this position on one occasion when I was conducting fieldwork in South Australia, where I had no constabulary powers. After observing a female punching a male repeatedly in the face, I advised the officers I was working with of this and they intervened. Deference Like any organisation with a hierarchical and disciplined command structure, police officers are regulated to defer to the authority of those officers senior in rank (Bayley, 1990; Brown, 1981). In addition, officers may also be required to defer to those at the same rank who have a greater level of service, in situations where a supervisor is absent.4 Deference becomes routinized for officers when in the presence of the officer with the highest level of service (or qualified to the next rank position). This also occurs more formally when senior members undertake higher duties or when working as field training officer for probationary officers. In terms of the POPR, the hierarchical position of the researcher may indirectly and unintentionally influence the direction of the encounter and the behaviour of research participants. This became apparent during the New Zealand fieldwork where I noticed that I had inadvertently influenced the behaviour of officers who were of junior service. On one occasion the patrol unit I accompanied began a period of road policing. While waiting, parked on the side of the road, I saw a vehicle with an illegal modification drive past. When the driver of the patrol vehicle did not move off to stop it, I asked why he hadn’t taken any action. Although my question was an attempt to lead into a discussion of the officers’ discretionary enforcement threshold, the officer moved off, chased after it and commenced a traffic stop. This was a very quick lesson that conversations in the field about the subjects’ practice needed to be held where there was little chance of affecting their immediate behaviour. In this instance, had I waited for a few minutes then there would have not been any chance that the officer would have gone after the vehicle. On another occasion with a different pair of officers, one member of the patrol was tasked to provide a static cordon at an intersection near the location of a critical incident. The officer chose to stand in the street, attempting to control traffic using his own presence and hand. After several vehicles had entered into the cordoned zone, I asked him why he’d chosen to use his body as the ‘block’. Again, the purpose of my question was to understand why he had chosen a particular course of action – to use his body as the physical barrier as opposed to using an inanimate object (such as a ‘road closed’ traffic sign). Shortly after, he suggested that we should in fact place road cones to block the street. In both examples, the officers I was assigned to were junior to my level of service. Through the process of asking field questions in situ, I found that I had inadvertently affected the practice of the research subject. It remains unclear whether the officers’ change of behaviour occurred because I had asked a question in a way that indirectly questioned their decision-making process or the officers were accustomed to follow directions from a more senior officer. What was more of a curiosity was the realisation that I too could be swayed by hierarchical ordering. When patrolling with two officers whom had more than five years’ service than my own, I found that I was less forthcoming with questions. During the shift I developed an awareness that I was the ‘junior’ in the car. This was not due to any particular comment made or behaviour of the research participants. It started at the beginning of the shift when I considered whether the officers had felt lumbered or put out with me in their patrol car. This question arose as I recalled my own experience of being accompanied by observers, and at times becoming annoyed at their POLICE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH 13 intrusion into my workplace. And, therefore, I suddenly felt very self-conscious of my position, in a way that I did not feel when accompanying junior officers. During the course of the shift, the patrol was dispatched to assess a street party where approximately 300 people were ‘partying’ on a street. The party location was within the university student quarter. Surprisingly, when we arrived at the location, the officer driving our vehicle decided to drive into the street that was saturated with people. As we drove forward the other officer made no comment of objection. The vehicle slowly inched forward, causing a number of people standing on the road to part to the edges. At the time, I felt that this was not the tactic I would have chosen. I made no comment, instead thinking that I needed to overcome my initial concern about the present course of action. I then began to consider if my apprehension was related to not being operational for 18 months – had I lost my nerve? – or was this course of action a foolish thing to do? At about 50 metres in, members of the crowd had moved to fill the space behind the vehicle. We had been completely surrounded and I now felt that the driver had erred. The feeling of error was exacerbated when glass bottles began to land on the roof of the patrol car, smashing into pieces on the rear windscreen, and causing one of the vehicle’s side windows to shatter, strewing glass on me. Yet I made no comment to the driver or front passenger, not even once we had successfully exited the street. What is particularly illuminating about these examples are my own reactions to working in the field. Looking back at those early situations completing the field research, I feel that I developed a sense of insecurity as a police officer, a researcher and as a POPR, in the presence of those who were more senior to me. I felt that I had to prove myself to those officers who were more experienced than me in a way that I did not to those who were less experienced than me. Conclusion The purpose of this paper was to discuss issues pertinent to police officers who undertake qualitative research of policing practice. The ideas discussed in the paper have originated from a reflective process undertaken at the completion of eight months of fieldwork. I had two aims: to identify problems inherent in police research and to discuss some researcher pitfalls that might only be apparent to sworn officers. First, I have proposed that the POPR can offer different perspectives to those of a non-practitioner researcher; they are ‘complete members’ of the culture in which they are researching and ‘insider-insiders’. In this respect, the POPR can have an advantage over the non-practitioner researcher. I have no doubt that over time nonpractitioner researchers may overcome their lack of familiarisation with the policing environment, but I believe that being able to run with police, climb tall fences, experience the physical and mental strain experienced by officers will lead to different appreciation of officers’ decisionmaking and behaviour than those sourced from non-practitioner researchers. POPRs, however, may face complications that are not applicable to non-practitioners. POPRs may struggle to establish a clear epistemological foundation in light of the confused epistemological and ontological processes found in the criminal justice system. Similarly, the POPR should reflect on the risk that their operational experience might influence their thought patterns, with a potential bias towards narratives from police officer research participants. Moreover, a POPR might face problems in the field that may not anticipated by research supervisors, ethics committees. Not only does a police officer have to convince their organisation’s research oversight committee (if they indeed have one) but the officer must negotiate to leave his or her own policing position for the period of the research project and then transition back to the policing upon completion. But while police agencies are not in the business of conducting field research, further thought needs to be given to facilitate research within the policing ranks. Police agencies must consider the legal and ethical problems when POPRs employ ethnographic methods. POPRs make a very solemn undertaking when accepting their oath of office. As such, research agendas and policies must take 14 R. HENDY into consideration the problem of balancing the roles of the professional police officer and that of the independent researcher. When in the field as a ‘researcher’, I found it most difficult to step back and not participate in police-citizen encounters. I was forced to watch and observe, not participate. After spending many years forcing myself into difficult and confrontational interactions with members of the public, being a ‘researcher’ role required me to learn to back off. I also observed how my status as a police officer could affect the way I was perceived by the police officer research participants: my status and my level in the hierarchy mattered. These problems were unexpected. I hope that these reflections provide insight for further police officer practitioner researchers. Notes 1. This list is by no means exhaustive. 2. Public order policing may include crowd control, riot control or responses to widespread disorder – see Waddington and Wright (2011). 3. The constable’s oath, is as follows: ‘I, [name], swear that I will faithfully and diligently serve Her (or His) Majesty [specify the name of the reigning Sovereign], Queen (or King) of New Zealand, her (or his) heirs and successors, without favour or affection, malice or ill-will. 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