‘It’s a Profession, it Isn’t a Job’: Police Officers’ Views on the Professionalisation of Policing in England

Karen Lumsden

Sociological Research Online, 2017, vol. 22, issue 3, 4-20

Abstract: This article focuses on police officers’ views on the professionalisation of policing in England against a backdrop of government reforms to policing via establishment of the College of Policing, evidence-based policing, and a period of austerity. Police officers view professionalisation as linked to top-down government reforms, education and recruitment, building of an evidence-base, and ethics of policing (Peelian principles). These elements are further entangled with new public management principles, highlighting the ways in which professionalism can be used as a technology of control to discipline workers. There are tensions between the government’s top-down drive for police organisations to professionalise and officers’ bottom-up views on policing as an established profession. Data are presented from qualitative interviews with 15 police officers and staff in England.

Keywords: education; ethics; evidence-base; police; policing; profession; professionalisation; public management; qualitative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:22:y:2017:i:3:p:4-20

DOI: 10.1177/1360780417724062

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