How do routinely unarmed police officers resolve interpersonal conflict during police-citizen encounters? A mixed-methods study of first-response police officers from New Zealand and Australia Ross Hendy, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge Theoretical Perspectives Turk’s theory of norm resistance (1969) Why does conflict occur between police and citizens? Turk suggests how the level of norm resistance (i.e. overt conflict between authorities and an individual) plays out in police-citizen encounters (PCEs). First, through social norms and cultural norms: conflict is most likely to occur when parties are acting “in accordance with their cultural norms” (Weidner and Terrill, 2005, p.86). Weidner and Terrill argue that norm resistance is less likely when neither party “acts in congruence with his or her cultural norms” (ibid) as this will most likely lead to compromise. Second, conflict is more likely when one of the parties has a higher level of social support than the other: a subject “who has group support for his behaviour is going to be more stubborn in the face of efforts to make him change” (Turk, 1969, p.58). For example, members of police as well as organised criminal groups have high social support, but from different sources. Third, the level of a protagonist’s sophistication influences the level of potential conflict. A skilled or trained police officer is more likely to avoid conflict than a newly graduated officer. Fourth, the closer the degree of cultural consensus between parties, the less likely that conflict will arise (Turk, 1969). Deutsch’s general theory of conflict resolution (1973) Why does it matter? In the aftermath of the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake (where approximately 185 people died) police officers from Australia deployed into Christchurch to assist New Zealand Police. Unlike their Australian counterparts, New Zealand Police are not routinely armed; they do not wear a firearm on their duty belt as a matter of course. As such, the Australian police officers had to ‘disarm’ during their deployment in New Zealand. There is anecdotal evidence that the ‘disarmed’ officers were initially fearful of operating unarmed, but over time they became accustomed to it, and observed that New Zealand police officers dealt with situations in a different manner because of their unarmed status. There is further anecdotal evidence that suggests some of the Australian officers, when returning from New Zealand, took time to readjust to policing in their ‘re-armed’ state. While these anecdotes poses several questions—the most curious of which is to ask how two similar societies such as New Zealand and Australia could have such contrasting approaches to police operational doctrine—it serves as the impetus for the proposed research. Scholarship of police operational behaviour is largely dominated by discussions of ‘Anglo-American’ police behaviour (see Manning, 2014 for example) with little consideration of potential cultural differences between forces that are routinely unarmed and routinely armed; is Manning correct when he suggests that ‘basic police practices are remarkably similar’ across the forces of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States (Manning, 2014, p.535)? Braithwaite’s model of conflict resolution (1998) Braithwaite used Deutsch’s theory as the basis for a exploratory study of conflict resolution techniques used by South Australian police officers (Braithwaite, 1998). Braithwaite accompanied police officers and observed PCEs in real time measuring behavioural exchanges between the parties. Incorporating Deutsch’s cooperationcompetition paradigm, and identifying other findings from the literature, Braithwaite developed the following model of conflict resolution (figure below). This model features five behavioural dimensions of information exchange, legitimacy, power, coercion and antisocial strategies shown below in oval shapes. Specific behavioural tactics are shown as connecting arrows. Support Accept INFORMATION EXCHANGE The purpose of the research proposed herein is to explore routinely unarmed policing through an examination of police-citizen encounters (PCEs). It has been established that routinely unarmed police officers perceive risk differently to routinely armed officers and therefore their response to an ‘armed incident’ is different (Hendy, 2014). But does this carry over to how routinely unarmed officers approach police-citizen encounters? And, do routinely unarmed officers resolve conflict without using techniques that are underpinned by immediate use of a firearm? LEGITIMACY Refuse Self Defence Reject CONFLICT ESCALATION Refuse Control Physical Physical Abuse Threat Verbal Abuse POWER COERCION Are there other relevant studies? • Bayley and Garofalo (1989) found that ‘skilled’ officers from the NYPD were more likely than ‘average’ officers to attend conflict encounters and were more likely to use authoritative or confrontational tactics. • Wilson and Gross (1994) found that a sample of Australian and English officers preferred tactics such as ‘confrontational discussion’, ‘mutual discussion’ or ‘bargaining/compromise’ to approach to conflict encounters. They also found no difference in the tactical preferences of the routinely armed Australian officers and routinely unarmed English officers. • Euwema, Kop and Bakker (2004) found that Dutch officers who suffered from ‘burnout’ were less dominant during conflict encounters and were more effective in resolving conflict. • Waddington et al. examined officer behaviour from six different police jurisdictions (2009). They established that police from Brazil anticipate different operational risks to those from Australia, or Germany, despite all being routinely armed. When analysing the views of officers from England, the researchers discovered differences between armed response officers and the routinely unarmed response officers: the armed response officers were more cautious when confronted with potentially armed offenders than the routinely unarmed first-response officers. View publication stats ANTISOCIAL STRATEGIES Braithwaite’s model of conflict resolution (Braithwaite, 1998, p.89) Using Deutsch’s theory of conflict resolution as a frame work, Braithwaite surmised that “conflict escalation occurs when hostility and antagonism between parties increases” and “conflict mitigation occurs when parties cooperate with each other and avoid negative communicative tactics” (Braithwaite, 1998, p.242). References Bayley, D.H. and Garofalo, J. 1989. The Management of Violence by Police Patrol Officers. Criminology, 27(1), pp.1–26. University Press, pp.518–547. Turk, A.T. 1969. Criminality and legal order. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company. Braithwaite, H. 1998. Behavioural Tactics for the Successful Resolution of Conflict. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Waddington, P., Adang, O., Baker, D., Birkbeck, C., Feltes, Deutsch, M. 1973. The Resolution of Conflict. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. discontinuities in how police talk about using force. Euwema, M.C., Kop, N. and Bakker, A.B. 2004. The behaviour of police officers in conflict situations: how burnout and reduced dominance contribute to better outcomes. Work & Stress, 18(1), pp.23–38. Hendy, R. 2014. Routinely Armed and Unarmed Police: What can the Scandinavian Experience Teach us? Policing. A Journal of Policy and Practice, 8(2), pp.183–192. Manning, P.K. 2014. Ethnographies of Policing. In: The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing. Oxford What are the research questions? The general research question seeks to understand how routinely unarmed police officers behave when experiencing interpersonal conflict. The research also explores the following sub-questions: • What tactics do routinely unarmed police officers from New Zealand and Australia use when attempting to resolve interpersonal conflict? • Are there differences in the tactics used by police officers from New Zealand and Australia when attempting to resolve interpersonal conflict differently? • Do factors such as officer gender, age, experience, length and type of service affect how behave during interpersonal conflict? What is the research approach? The research questions will be explored through a comparative casestudy of police officers in Australia and New Zealand. • PCEs shall be analysed by measuring behavioural interactions between officers and citizens as well as considering situational factors; • Officers will be measured in terms of personality, their exposure to resistance, and professional experience. CONFLICT MITIGATION Seek Give Research Approach T., Gabaldón, L.G., Machado, E.P. and Stenning, P. 2009. Singing the same tune? International continuities and Crime, Law and Social Change, 52(2), pp.111–138. Weidner, R.R. and Terrill, W. 2005. A Test of Turk’s Theory Quantitative data will be collected using four instruments: Instrument Encounter Variables Encounter Behaviours Officer personality Officer experience Purpose To collect situational variables relating to the encounter, the police officer and citizen To collect behavioural data during encounters To collect data on the personality type of the ‘contact’ officer To collect data on the level of resistance the officer has experienced during operational career Source Modified version of Schulenburg’s SSO instrument Braithwaite’s behaviour taxonomy BFI Personality Test Wilson and Brewer Resistance Scale Qualitative data will be collected through interviews with officers. The interviews will follow a semi-structured approach, collecting data about how officers learn to resolve conflict and using a cognitive interviewing technique to explore officer reactions to conflict encounters. How will the data be analysed? Data will be analysed to describe the way conflict resolution behaviours occurs within the two sample sites. This will include inferential analyses of statistical variables and internal generalisation of qualitative data. Analyses will include officer variables such as age, type of service, length of service, gender, and encounter role (lead or assist). Situational variables include citizen variables and location variables. The second approach will focus on narrative analysis of the cognitive interviews. Once the interviews have been transcribed they will be analysed using an iterative interpretation process. What is the intended outcome? …to establish if there are in fact differences between routinely-armed-policing (RAP) and routinely-unarmed-policing (RUP)! Significant differences between the Australian and New Zealand data would inform the discussion about differences between RAP and RUP. of Norm Resistance Using Observational Data on Police-Suspect Encounters. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 42(1), pp.84–109. Wilson, C. and Gross, P. 1994. Police-Public Interactions: The Impact of Conflict Resolution Tactics. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24(2), pp.159–175. Ross Hendy, B.Mus, Cert CP, MSS PhD Candidate Institute of Criminology University of Cambridge Sidgwick Avenue Cambridge, CB3 90DA, UK Private Mobile +44 (0) 7557 333483 PhD Office +44 (0) 1223 767373 Email: reh81@cam.ac.uk https://cambridge.academia.edu/RossHendy https://www.crim.cam.ac.uk October 2014 Masks, used by permission, Shutterstock The Research Problem Deutsch suggests that “a conflict exists whenever incompatible activities occur” (1973, p.10) and that conflict arises either from a cooperative context or competitive context: cooperative conflict occurs when parties share similar goals but disagree on how those goals might be achieved; a competitive context occurs when parties have competing goals (Deutsch, 1973). In terms of conflict resolution, Deutsch proposes that cooperative conflict can be resolved by using constructive techniques: cooperative behaviour induces a “benign spiral of cooperation” while competition induces a “vicious spiral of intensifying competition” (Deutsch, 1973, p.31).