results of a survey on the state of the police service in...
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Results of a survey on the state of the police service in England and WalesBen Bradford, Centre for Criminology, University of OxfordJennifer Brown, Mannheim Centre, London School of EconomicsIsabell Schuster, Mannheim Centre, London School of Economics
This survey was initiated by the Stevens Independent Commission into the future of Policing in England and Wales and conducted with the help and support of the Police Federation of England and Wales and the Superintendents Association. Results are based on an on-line survey of officers up to the rank of chief superintendent. Over 14,000 police officers responded, equating to one in ten of all serving officers.
December 2012
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Key findings
The purpose of the police There was strong agreement among respondents about the crime fighting, crime
prevention and reassurance purposes of the police.
Delivery Three-quarters (76%) of respondents felt the police treat the public with
respect, which accords with IPCC confidence survey data indicating 75% of the public are happy with police-public contacts.
72% felt that the police overall are doing a good or an excellent job.
Legitimacy About half (54%) believed public opinion toward the police has changed for the
worse over the last ten years, especially young people, motorists and those from the working class.
Less than one quarter (22%) of respondents felt closely aligned with the stated values of their force.
Police officers are concerned about the impact of police and crime commissioners:
Over two-thirds (69%) of respondents thought PCCs not a good idea. Nearly four-fifths (78%) strongly agreed police service should be free of
political influence.
Relationships Respondents did not believe they are supported by the present government
(95%) or by the media (82%), or indeed ACPO (69%) and the judiciary (56%). There was widespread, although by no means universal, agreement that police
relationships with different population groups (such as motorists, young people and the working class) have deteriorated over recent years.
Organization A plurality of officers who responded to the survey (43%) wanted to retain the
43-force structure, as at present, although 29% opted for some regionalisation and 18% a national police force.
Workforce and work relations More than half (56%) of the police officers who responded to the survey had
recently contemplated leaving the service, with mid-career constables the most likely to have done so.
One third of respondents (33%) were very worried about the threat of being forced to retire.
Respondent’s sense that they are treated in a fair and equitable manner was linked to their sense of the legitimacy of the service and their commitment to it. Forces with officers who feel they are treated in a fair and equitable manner tend to be those that receive lower levels of complaints from the public.
One-fifth (20%) of officers say they experience bullying at work all or some of the time. Forces where respondents report higher levels of bullying also tend to be those that receive more complaints from the public.
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Only one quarter (27%) of respondents thought a national college of policing a very good idea
Resources Respondents were generally opposed to the involvement of private companies
in policing: Less than half (44%) thought private involvement in managing custody
suites a good idea Over 80% thought private involvement in traffic accidents, interviewing
witness or suspects, dealing with victims of crime a bad idea.
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Results of a survey on the state of the police service in England and Wales
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Methodological note
3. The purpose of the police
4. Delivery
5. Legitimacy
6. Relationships
7. Organization
8. Workforce and work relations
9. Resources
10. Conclusions
11. References
12. Appendix
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1. Introduction
This paper reports results from a survey initiated by The Stevens Commission, which has been tasked with examining the future of policing in England and Wales. It was inspired by Lord Stevens’ commitment to engaging as wide a range of views from police officers about the future of their service. Additional surveys are being conducted with police staff and also the general public.
The last root and branch examination of the Police Service was the 1960-62 Royal Commission. Conditions prevailing at that time were the growth of affluence; decline in deference; inclination to question authority; glorification of youth culture; civil protest; self-conscious African-Caribbean/Asian identity; and changes wrought by new technology; police scandals. Political scandals such as the Profumo affair created an atmosphere that suggested a remoteness of political life from ordinary people and fostered distrust in politicians. More specifically the Royal Commission was pre-empted by a number of police corruption cases and Parliamentary concern over the management of complaints about police conduct.
A similar atmosphere prevails today, with the context of policing affected by the banking crisis and the apparent low number of individuals identified for criminal prosecutions; the Leveson inquiry which was critical of the police investigation into the phone hacking scandals and a perception that may have been created of too close a relationship between press and police; the death of Ian Tomlinson during a G20 protest, the implications of the Hillsborough report on the probity of South Yorkshire officers’ statements at the time of the disasters, so called ‘pleb-gate’ affair of the Government Chief whip’s alleged comments to a police officer, the suicides of chief officers under investigation, and the recent sacking of a chief constable. Yet, while current concerns around the police resonate with the context of the earlier Commission, there are some important social and economic differences. To name just two, advances in information technology have dramatically changed people’s access to information and modes of social interaction and, rather than the relative affluence of the 1960s, we are now entering what many have characterised as an age of austerity.
Policing itself has moreover gone through significant change. At the time of 1962 Commission England and Wales had a traditional model of policing: single beats on an alternating shift, a pattern that had prevailed for more than 100 years. Since then there has been an increasingly rapid cycle of change, with the advent of policies such as unit beat policing, problem oriented policing, reassurance policing, neighbourhood policing, evidence-based policing – the list could go on. The management of the police has evolved through the application of new public sector management techniques, financial management initiatives, ‘value for money’, ‘best value’ and now austerity led management.
As in the case of the earlier commission, the Commission chaired by Lord Stevens is committed to hearing what the police themselves have to say about the present state of and the impeding changes to their service as well as enquiring into their own present assessment of their service and its management. It therefore commissioned this survey as one aspect of a wider enquiry into the views of serving officers across a range of subjects. Some questions in the 2012 survey mirrored items included in a similar survey fielded on behalf of the 1962 commission (in 1960). Throughout this report we
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draw comparisons across the two surveys, and we therefore have measures of the views of police officers separated by 60, sometimes very turbulent, years.
The current Commission is structured around seven key themes: purpose; delivery; legitimacy; relationships; organization; workforce; and resources. Each of these themes is picked up in this report, which comprises a preliminary account of a survey conducted with ranks of officers up to chief superintendent.
The Commission gratefully acknowledges the assistance and support of the Police Federation and the Superintendents Association in the conducting of the survey.
2. Methodological note
This report comprises data collected via an on-line survey (using Survey Monkey) sent to all serving officers up to the rank of Chief Superintendent during the last two weeks of September and first two weeks of October, 2012. The survey included both close-ended questions, usually with responses on Likert-type scales, and open-ended ‘free-text’ questions that allowed respondents to enter response in their own words. We report findings from both types below, although the main emphasis is on the close-ended questions.
In all 16,267 people responded to the survey. Of these, 14,167 indicated they were serving police officers. The remainder were members of police staff. For present purposes they were excluded from the analysis as this group are the subject of a separate survey, the results of which will be published in due course.
The response rate represents one in ten of all officers serving up to the rank of chief superintendent. The response rates are given in the Table 1.
Table 1: Officer numbers, 2012, and survey responses
Total number
Survey number
Response rate (%)
Men 98,352 11,410 12Women 36,014 2,686 8
BME 6,673 602 9White 127,693 14,167 11
Chief Superintendent 404 42 10Superintendent 942 105 11Chief Inspector 1,780 224 13Inspector 6,657 1,020 15Sergeant 21,457 3,057 14Constable 103,126 9,698 9All 134,366 14,167 11
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The overall survey response rate was around 11%. Table 1 shows that there was some variation across demographic categories and ranks. Male officers were more likely to have responded than female; while BME officers were somewhat less likely to have responded than White officers. Response rates rose from Constable to Sergeant to Inspector, before falling back again as rank increased further.
In terms of the representativeness of the achieved sample, therefore, men are over represented (73% serving, 81% responding) and women under-represented (27% serving and 19% responding). By contrast, 5% of respondents were from BME groups, approximately proportional to the representation of ethnic minority groups in the service. As Table 2 shows, proportionately more officers at sergeant rank and fewer constables replied to the survey than are presently serving. Proportionately more inspectors responded.
Table 2: Officers by rank: as proportion of total police strength and as proportion of achieved sample
Percentages
Proportion of
serving officers
Proportion of survey
respondents
Constable 77 68Sergeant 16 21Inspector 5 7Chief Inspector 1 1Superintendent 1 1Chief Superintendent 0.3 0.3
It is important to note that with a response rate of around 10%, the achieved sample should not be considered to be representative of all serving police officers. Significant bias may have resulted from self-selection into, or out of, the sample, as well as other factors, and the results presented in this report should be treated as purely indicative. Nevertheless, the sheer size of the sample – one in ten of all serving officers – along with evidence presented below that suggests the survey does not cover only the views of the disaffected, implies that the survey results is a useful indicator of the opinions of police officers serving at this time of significant upheaval, both within the police and more widely.
3. The purpose of the police
An early task the Commission set itself was to examine the purposes of policing and to revisit the ‘Peelian principles’. While the provenance of these principles remains uncertain (Reiner 2012), they very clearly set out the functions of the police as preserving order and investigating crime but whose “principal object” was to be the prevention of crime (General Instructions, 1929:1). These instructions went on to
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explain that the “security of persons and property, preservation of the public tranquillity will thus be better protected than by the detection and punishment of the offender after he has succeeded in committing the crime” (p2). This dual role – dealing with crime and preserving order – to this day corresponds well with what is known about the public’s vision of the purpose of policing (Jackson et al. 2012a; c.f. Bittner 1974).
Governments in recent years have privileged crime fighting – that is, dealing with crime after it has occurred - yet, as Reiner points out, while he may have had rather little to do with the principles as they have come to be known, as shown above, ‘what is beyond doubt is that Peel emphasised ‘prevention of crime’ as the key role of the New Police’ (Reiner 2012: 8, emphasis added). Reiner further notes that the social service and crime control components of modern policing are encapsulated in the force versus service debate. Achieving a balance between these ends, which may be both complementary and in competition is arguably the key debate in modern policing (Loader in press), the survey therefore probed officer’s opinions about the purpose of the police as they see it.
Officers responding to the survey were very clear about what they consider to be the main purposes of policing with over 90% saying that each the following activities or factors are important or very important
Maintaining order Investigating locally committed volume crime such as burglary Maintaining focus on serious crime Preventing crime Counter-Terrorism Dealing with anti-social behaviour Reassuring communities
Of somewhat lesser importance was the police mandate to protect civil liberties (69% said this was important or very important), and, particularly, the police’s roles in dealing with mentally ill people – only 28% of respondents thought this important or very important.
Interestingly when asked by Ipsos MORI poll on behalf of Police Federation 2011 which organizations are responsible for providing various services members of the public indicated their belief that a range of agencies should be involved; but also that there should be a clear lead agengy in each cases (see Figure 1). The police were the clear lead in cases of domestic abuse but less so with other vulnerable groups. It was striking that little if any involvement was thought appropriate from the private sector.
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Figure 1: Public preferences for the delivery of servicesAnswers to the question: ‘Which of the organizations on this card do you think are responsible for providing the following services?’Percentages
Source: Ipsos MORI poll, 2nd Feb 2011. n=1,141
Investigating serious and local crime, maintaining order and crime prevention were critical elements of the police role to all respondents in the current survey, independent of gender, rank or ethnicity and, for the most part, location. However, with respect to the police’s involvement with the mentally ill or protecting human rights, there were some differences between provincial and metropolitan forces. This division relates to local authority arrangements. In England, Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties are one of the four levels of administrative subdivisions outside Greater London. Police forces associated with Metropolitan counties are Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire and West Midlands, with London being policed by the Metropolitan Police Service. So-called “shire” counties are policed by provincial police forces that are smaller in number of officers than the metropolitan police forces and have lower populations. Officers in the provincial forces were more likely to endorse a human rights mandate for the police, while those in the metropolitan were more likely to endorse police responses to the mentally ill.
4. Delivery
The Commission felt that, in thinking about what the police do, it was crucial to consider how officers undertake their policing tasks. Taking their answers to the functions described above a median split was calculated for endorsement of items that can be thought of as crime control (investigating locally committed volume crime such as burglary, maintaining focus on serious crime, counter-terrorism and dealing with anti-social behaviour) and also for items making up more social welfarist/community
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interventions (crime prevention, reassurance, protecting human rights, dealing with the mentally ill, supporting the building of community cohesion).
It was then possible to classify police officers in terms of their endorsement of these two broad areas of delivery, crime control and social engagement. Two-fifths (42%) of the officers who responded weighted crime control as more important than social welfare, while 58% thought both equally important. Men, sergeants and inspectors and white or Chinese officers were the more likely to be crime oriented, while women, probationer constables and chief superintendents, and those from non-Chinese BME backgrounds were more likely to be both crime and social welfarist in orientation.
Those officers who believe that the police function should incorporate both crime control and welfare functions appear to be more open to innovation. They were more likely to be supportive of the idea of the police college, private involvement in policing, and to think of themselves as closer to their force’s values. They were however more likely to wish the 43 forces to remain as they are, possibly because they wished to maintain a close link between police and local communities.
When it came to their assessments of the performance of the police, just over half of all respondents (53%) agreed or strongly agreed that the police service concentrates its efforts on doing the right things; 34% disagreed with this proposition. However, respondents with a crime focus were more likely than not to disagree that the service concentrates on doing the right things (64% disagreed), while only 39% of respondents who prioritised both crime and social welfare disagreed with the idea that the service is doing right things. See below for more discussion of these questions.
The survey also contained an item that mirrors a question that has been fielded to members of the public, via the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW), for many years: ‘Taking everything into account, how good job do you think the police in England and Wales are doing?’ Some 21% of all respondents thought that the service was doing an excellent job; 51% gave a ‘good job’ response, while 23% indicated a fair job and 4% a poor job. By comparison, over the 12 months July 2011 to July 2012, some 62% of the public felt their local police were doing an excellent or good job (ONS 2012). Officers are therefore more likely than the general population to think the police are doing an excellent or good job, but perhaps not by a particularly large margin.
Respondents to the officer survey who had a combined crime and welfare orientation were somewhat more likely to think that the police service as a whole is doing an excellent job (23%) compared to those with a crime focus (17%). Across the different ranks the most junior (student/probationer constable) and the most senior (chief superintendent) respondents were the most likely to think the police service is doing an excellent job. Female respondents were more likely to think this than male respondents.
Figure 2 shows that overall there was little significant variation in responses to this question by ethnicity. Yet, the results suggest that Black officers had somewhat more favourable views on this measure than their White counterparts. Given the on-going problems in relation to racism and discrimination faced by the service this finding
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should be treated with some caution, and it may reflect nothing more than bias introduced by self-selection into the sample.1 It is, nevertheless, an intriguing result.
Figure 2: Rating of ‘how good a job’ the police do: by ethnicityPercentages
Police fairnessResearch has shown that the fairness of police actions is a key concern for members of the public (see Jackson et al. 2012a), with concerns revolving primarily around the ‘procedural fairness’ of police activity (Tyler 2006). What then did respondents to the officer survey feel about the fairness with which police services are delivered?
On the whole, respondents felt the police treat members of the public with respect. The majority of officers (76%) thought the Police Service dealt respectfully with members of the public always or very often, 21% thought this was the case often, and only 2% thought it happened not very often. Respondents were somewhat less positive, however, in terms of impartiality of decision making when forwarding cases to the CPS. Such decisions were thought to be made always or very often on a fair basis by 56% of the sample, while 33% felt this was done often and 11% felt such decisions were made fairly not very often or not at all often. When it came to the police’s actions and decisions being explained to members of the public in a timely fashion – a key aspect of procedural fairness (Tyler and Huo 2002) – only 29% of survey respondents thought this was achieved always or very often, 44% felt it often happened, and 27% not very often or not at all. What these results suggest are that police officers themselves do note areas where they can improve.
Notably, officers with a crime control orientation were more critical of police delivery with respect to explaining actions to members of the public, forwarding cases to the
1 There were also only a small number of Black officers in the survey.
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CPS and dealing respectfully with members of the public. Women officers are more positive in their ratings of delivery in these three regards than men.
By and large critical assessment of delivery was associated with rank (Figure 3). In terms of explaining decisions to the public, assessments became more critical the higher the rank. When it comes to despatching papers to the CPS impartially then the reverse trend was observed with greater criticism associated with lowering rank. Overall there were few officers of any rank who believed that members of the public were not treated with respect.
Figure 3: Assessments of poor service delivery: by rankPercentage thinking each aspect of service is achieved ‘not at all often’ or ‘not very often’
These findings imply that police officers are aware of potential problems in the way interactions with the public are handled, particularly in relation to the flow of information between police and citizen. Indeed, there is some evidence that public experiences of direct contact with police officers have improved in recent times. For example, data from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) suggest that levels of satisfaction with encounters with police contact, which were already quite high, have increased further in the last few years, rising from 70% in 2008/09 to 76% in 2010/11.
5. Legitimacy
Legitimacy and accountability issues are critical to the notion of policing by consent, the bedrock of the model of policing in the United Kingdom. The Police Federation (2008) explained the basis in law for the holding of the office of constable:
The Office of Constable means a police officer has the additional legal powers of arrest and control of the public given to him or her directly by a sworn oath
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and warrant. These are not delegated powers simply because they have been employed as an officer. Police officers are not employees. Each sworn constable is an independent legal official; they are not agents of the police force, police authority or government. Each police officer has personal liability for their actions or inaction. The chief officer of the force to which the constable is attached also has a level of corporate responsibility. Those who hold the Office of Constable are servants of the Crown, not employees. Police officers have access to most statutory employment rights afforded to employees, but it is a criminal offence for police officers to take industrial action.
So, we often think of the legitimacy of the police as their accountability in law; yet, legitimacy is also a feature of the beliefs and actions of the populations the police serve. Research has tended to find that public perceptions of police legitimacy are grounded most strongly in trust in or experiences of procedural justice (Jackson et al. 2012b; Tyler and Huo 2002), although many other factors are also likely to be important. Furthermore, police officers also have a sense of their own legitimacy, and the legitimacy of the organization they work for, in relation for example to the ability of individual officers and the organization to command respect and deference from the public (Bottoms and Tankebe 2012).
Work on legitimacy in criminal justice settings (Bottoms and Tankebe 2012; Jackson et al. 2012b) stresses that legitimacy is a multi-faceted concept that encompasses factors such as the relationship between police and public, citizen and police views of the efficacy and social usefulness the of the police, concerns about the legality and probity of police activity, and sense of shared values among those working within the organization and in its relationships with citizens. A number of questions tapping into these ideas were included in the survey, and we summarise the results below.
Relations between police and publicJust over half (54%) of the police officers in the survey thought that the public’s opinion of them had changed for the worse in recent years (see Figure 6). A further question asked specifically about how much officer though the public supported them. About 10% thought that the public gave them very little support, about 25% thought not very much support, 59% thought some support and 6% a great deal of support. Officers with a crime focus were marginally more likely to think relations with the public had changed for the worse (57%) compared to 52% of those with a crime and welfarist orientation.
There is an interesting comparison to be made with the original 1960-62 Royal Commission, which also ran a survey assessing attitudes among serving officers. An even higher proportion (around 70%) of officers in 1960 thought that public attitudes had changed for the worse, while almost none thought they had changed for the better. Considerably more officers in 1960 than in 2012 thought there had been no real change. A narrative of decline in the relationship between police and public appears, on this basis at least, to have had currency within the police service for over 50 years.
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Figure 4: Police officer attitudes about change in public opinion towards them: 1960 and 2012Percentages
Turning to officer’s own views relating to the legitimacy of the police, Table 3 shows results from questions probing some of the different elements of ‘self’ legitimacy. These questions are intended to tap into respondent’s sense that the police concentrates on doing the right thing, is free from corruption, and fulfils a useful social function.
Table 3: Police officers’ views about different aspects of ‘internal’ legitimacy
Percentages
Police concentrate
most of their effort on doing the right things
Police are generally free from
corruption
If we have fewer police we'll have
less crimeStrongly agree 7 42 74Agree 46 50 20Disagree 31 4 3Strongly disagree 15 1 1Don't know 2 2 1n (=100%) 14,141 14,148 14,159
Respondents were generally fairly certain that (a) police are needed to combat crime and (b) that British police are broadly free of corruption. Yet, there was much less consensus in relation to the idea that ‘police concentrate most of their effort on doing the right thing’, with only a bare majority (53%) agreeing with this statement. One
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interpretation of this finding might be that a significant proportion of serving officers doubt the extent to which the police as an organization utilises its resources in the best way possible and thus does not always manage to ‘do the right thing’. The police officers in the survey do appear to link rates of crime with numbers of officers. This, as Reiner (2012) and others observe is a more complex relationship and indeed rates of recorded crime have actually gone down despite the reduction in the overall numbers of police officers.
UK-based research on the legitimacy of the police among the public has found that alignment with the values represented and enacted by the police is the most important aspect of the relationship between police and public. What did police officers think about the values of their organization? Figure 5 shows that less than one quarter (22%) of officers surveyed felt ‘close’ to the stated values of the force they worked for. Some 43 said they felt neither close not distant, while 14% felt distant and 15% said they didn’t know how they felt. Considering ‘don’t know’ and ‘neither’ responses together, it seems that 58% felt ambiguous or undecided about their sense of alignment with force values (although 94% of respondents did at least know what their forces stated values were).
Figure 5: Alignment with force valuesResponses to the question: ‘How closely do you feel aligned to the Forces’ stated values?’Percentages
A further factor influencing the legitimacy of the police – from the perspective of serving officers, at least – could be argued to be the extent to which it is free from direct political control (or ‘interference’). We note, of course, that others might see such accountability as a prerequisite of legitimate policing, underlining the fact that legitimacy is a fluid and contested topic, and that different parties in the debate may have quite different views on how the power invested in the police is mandated and maintained.
The officers surveyed were strongly of the view that policing should be free of political influence and that they should not be accountable to democratically elected politicians (Table 4). Pertinently, given current events, 49% thought that Police and Crime
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Commissioners were not a good idea at all, while a further 20% thought this not a very good idea.
Table 4: Views on political influence on policing
Percentages
Police should be
independent of political
influence
Police should be
accountable to
democratically elected
politiciansStrongly agree 78 4Agree 17 14Disagree 2 31Strongly disagree 1 42Don't know 1 8
The free text comment respondents were able to make in the survey provide some evidence of the reasons respondents gave in support of their opinions about police and crime commissioners:
PCCs linked to political parties were seen as putting politics into policing; There was a perception of a danger that people with extreme views might be
elected as PCCs, and might encourage abuse of the position; There were reservations about candidates, for example about the extent to
which they might be influenced or pressured politically or commercially; Candidates were seen as lacking experiences and knowledge about law
enforcement; There was a general concern about the possibility of corruption; Some respondents felt this was too much power for one person; There were concerns that the advent of PCCs would lead to more bureaucracy; High costs/’waste of time and money’ was also another frequent concern; Respondents doubted whether PCCs would lead to improvements in efficiency
or effectiveness; Officers worried that decisions will be made on the basis of vote-catching
rather than what is genuinely important; The (potentially) low turnout was mentioned as a problem.
However not all officers were negative about the prospect of PCCs. Some respondents noted that adding a degree of democracy might be desirable, and that PCCs might provide an opportunity to challenge the service to improve. Consider these two more in-depth quotations:
“Essentially, I agree with the plan for a democratic mandate for the PCC. Whilst the Police Authorities are partially elected, I have found them to be very "committee" based in style, thereby increasing to a massive degree the level of bureaucracy on Policing. That said, I have found my local Police Authority to be highly effective, and will be sad to see that partnership element end.”
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“PCCs are a fairly good idea as I believe they present an opportunity to galvanise a single, cohesive approach to police and partners working together to prevent crime and deal with offending - counter-intuitively, the single elected role could cut through much of the fractured and polarised landscape of local politics in local authorities. I also believe that PCCs hold the potential to raise the profile of policing and its challenges with the local community - Despite the best efforts of Police Authorities, the public rarely understood their role or engaged in consultation with PAs to any meaningful degree.”
Public trustTo provide some context to the findings presented above, Figure 6 shows that, overall, the police are ‘mid-table’ when it comes to public trust in a number of important professions and occupations. The general public are most likely to say they trust doctors, teachers or judges, and least likely to trust journalists and politicians. Police come about half way in this list with, just over 60% of the public trusting police to tell the trust in 2011.
Figure 6: Trust ratings from IPSO- Mori 2011 dataPercentage trusting each profession to ‘tell the truth’
Source: Source: IPSOS- Mori, June 2011 data
Looking at change over time, Figure 7 shows that according to ISPSOS-Mori data stretching back to 1983, levels of public trust in the police have remained broadly constant, and higher than the average level of trust across the professions shown in Figure 6. By contrast, data from the CSEW over the same period show a decline in confidence in the police from 1984 to 2000 and subsequently, from about 2002/03, a significant increase (see ONS 2012). This difference is most likely due to the different survey questions used: IPSOS-Mori ask respondents if they ‘trust the police to tell the truth’; the CSEW asks ‘how good a job’ people think the police are doing. The latter formulation seems likely to be more variable over time because it may condense a much wider range of views (such as judgements about the instrumental effectiveness of the police and their competence) than the former, which is much more closely de-limited to a moral issue about trustworthiness). Provisos aside, it seems that police
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pessimistic perceptions of declining public opinion (see Figure 6 above) are not borne out by the recent CSEW/IPSOS-Mori data.
Figure 7: Trust in the police 1983-2011 (IPSOS-Mori data)Percentages
Source: Source: IPSOS- Mori, June 2011 data
6. Relationships
A key feature in the development of policing in recent years has been the growth of partnership relationships, in part as a recognition that the police service cannot deliver all aspects of policing alone, and indeed increasingly does so in collaboration with other agencies. Furthermore, the ‘public’ the police serve and interact with is made up of different groups and sectional interests. We noted above that declining relationships between police and public appear to be a concern of police officers now in much the same way as they were in 1960. Relationships with the public and other institutions may also be a key element in police officer’s sense of the place and importance of the police within society. In this section we probe more deeply into police officers’ views of their relationships with various groups in society and with legal, policy and other actors.
One set of survey questions asked whether respondents felt whether different groups have become more resentful towards the police than ten years ago. Figure 8 shows results from this question, drawing from the 1960 and 2012 data. Strikingly, officers in 2012 were much more negative than their 1960 counterparts about relations across all groups shown, with relations with motorists and young people being perceived as particularly problematic. One interesting finding is that class appears a more salient element of concern in 2012 than it was in 1960 – despite the alleged decline in the relevance of class as a social category it seems that when asked police officers in 2012 are able to consider ‘the working class’ and ‘the upper class’ as social groups with whom the police have relationships (and, often, worsening relationships).
Figure 8: Relations between police and different ‘publics’: 1960 and 2012
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Percentage of respondents thinking each group ‘more against’ police now than compared with 10 years ago
Note: Ethnic minorities not covered as a separate category in 1960.
Data from the IPCC confidence survey shows a marked correspondence with the officer data (see Figure 9). Working class citizens are the least happy with police contacts and those from some BME groups are less happy than their white counterparts. Young people are the most likely to be unhappy with the quality of police-public encounters. It seems that difficult relationships between police and young people, working class people and (some) BME groups are recognised from both sides.
Figure 9: Satisfaction with contact with the police by class, ethnicity and age Percentage ‘happy’ with contact
Source: IPCC
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Why do police officers think that people have become more antagonistic toward them? In 1960, the Royal Commission identified these reasons for the deterioration:
a) people knew more about the law; b) young people were more antagonistic to authority and lacked parental control;c) that sentences were too lenient; and d) enforcement of petty regulations antagonised the public.
The press were then thought to have contributed to deteriorating relations between police and public because of banner headlines and making minor incidents appear more major giving the public a distorted view of the police. Then 18% thought media reporting unfair.
Fast forward to 2012 and police concerns about the media persist and have indeed been amplified. There is a sense that people are well informed through the internet (or at least have access to a lot of information via the internet) and that the press has given wide coverage to various malpractice stories involving the police. In the present survey 52% thought the press gave the police very little support and 20% not very much support. The police point of view is well illustrated by this comment from a superintendent
“The media have a big part to play in adversely affecting public confidence in the police, that is not to say that they shouldn't uncover wrong doing or poor performance in the public interest, most of the time they are looking for cheap stories to sell papers, you have only to look at the avalanche of FOI requests to be convinced of that.”
Respondents to the 2012 survey were however rather less concerned about police relationships with a number of other groups (often ones not mentioned in the 1960 survey); 22% thought members of the LGBT communities were more resentful towards them that 10 years ago, and only 12% though this about disabled people. Officers with a crime focus were more likely to think these groups were more resentful towards the police that officers having a crime and welfarist orientation.
Notwithstanding the superintendent’s comment above, the media are just one institution with which police have a relationship, and the survey contained items asking respondents about the extent to which police are supported by a range of other institutions and actors. Responses are shown in Table 5.
Overall, the sense is that police do not feel well supported in the work they do. A majority of respondents felt the police received not very much or very little support from: the present government; the media; ACPO; the judiciary; and the CPS. Only in the case of the Police Federation and the public did a majority feel that the police received at least some support.
Table 5: Degree of support from different organizations/institutions
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Percentages
A
great deal Some
Not very
muchVery little
Very little plus not
very muchPresent Coalition Govt 0 4 18 78 95
Media 0 17 31 52 83ACPO 2 26 33 36 68The Judiciary 2 39 37 19 56CPS 4 44 35 16 51Police Federation 10 43 25 19 44
The general public 7 58 24 10 34
To put the results described above in some context, only 15 officers of the over 14,000 surveyed (many fewer than 1% of the sample) thought the present Coalition Government supported the Police a great deal, and only 658 (4%) thought the Government gave them some support. In their textual responses several officers expressed this lack of support as the breaking of a social contract or covenant
“The covenant between Police and Government no longer exists due to the recent pensions reform and the lack of respect shown to police by this Government. The Police have always accepted that reform was necessary but to change pensions which formed part of an employment contract demonstrates a lack of awareness of the duties performed by Police and the restrictions placed upon them.”
“I live in a rural county and currently have to drive 84 miles each day to get to/from work. I feel that the psychological contract between me and the Service/Government has been broken; as a police officer I accept certain restrictions on my life but was compensated by the terms of my pay/pension. As an officer that deployed in the London riots of 2011, I worked 18-20hrs a day for 7 days in a row, initially sleeping in terrible accommodation where me and my team were all bitten by fleas/bed bugs and I won't mention the food. We were financially compensated for the hours we worked but worked without complaint serving the community and the government. It is situations like this that warrant the good terms that police officers are employed on”
7. Organization
In the wake of the recent reorganization of policing in Scotland into one ‘national’ force, and the re-structururing of forces in Europe, continued questions are likely to be asked about the organization of policing in England and Wales. Respondents to the officer survey were asked about the structure of the police organization, and their responses can be summarized as follows:
49% felt that the Police Service in England and Wales should remain as 43 forces, as at present;
29% thought that the service should be ‘regionalised’ into a smaller number of bigger forces;
18% thought that the service should become a national police force; and
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4% felt that the service should be reorganized into local territorial command units coterminous with Local Authorities.
Figure 10 shows that there were quite sharp differences of view between officers of different ranks. Probationer/student constables and constables were the most keen to retain the present structure of 43 forces, whereas officers of inspector and above support were more likely to support the idea of regionalising forces. Interestingly there is no clear consensus among the 42 Chief Superintendents who responded to the survey.
Figure 10: Preferred organizational structure of police in England and Wales: by rankPercentages
If we examine these preferences by the existing ACPO regions then a varied picture emerges (Figure 11). While retaining the 43-force structure remained the majority preference for all regions, there was by no means a consensus. Officer in Wales and the South West strongly supported regionalisation, while in London and the West Midlands we find a measure of support for a national police service. Indeed, 37% of Welsh officers supported regionalisation, compared with 28% of English officers; conversely, only 12% of those serving in Welsh forces prefer a national police force compared to 18% of those serving in English forces.
Further analysis suggested significant variation in the views of respondents from the big metropolitan forces and the provincial forces. There was a somewhat greater preference for regionalisation among officers serving in provincial forces (36%, compared to 26% of officers from metropolitan forces).
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Figure 11: Organizational preferences: by ACPO RegionPercentages
8. Workforce and work relations
Clearly any organization is reliant on its workforce, and the Commission was anxious to have an indication of what officers thought about the qualities important in being a police officer, and also the ways in which they were managed by both supervisors and senior managers. Intriguingly, the original instructions set out for the ‘new police’ constable that he [sic] ‘must be civil and attentive to all persons, of every rank and class’ (p41) moreover ‘he must remember that there is no qualification more indispensable to a police officer than a perfect command of temper, never suffering himself to be moved in the slighted degree by any language or threats that may be used’. (p42). In a later publication of instructions to London Metropolitan police officers published in 1890 officers were reassured that ‘every man has an equal opportunity of rising to the higher ranks if he shows himself qualified by activity and intelligence ... it is desirable that the aspiring constable should improve himself in his leisure hours’. Further they were enjoined to use the library, at their own expense to read ‘books of reference, history and geography’. Thus self-improvement undertaken in the officer’s own time and at their own expense was an early marker for career minded officer.
The present Government have introduced the College of Policing as a new organization to handle standards setting, research and educational aspects of policing, and the Commission was also keen to obtain officers views of this innovative idea.
Qualities of police officersOfficers were asked to rate the qualities they felt important to being a police officer. Almost all thought having a strong sense of duty and public service and being polite and courteous as the most important, followed by having emotional intelligence, being physically fit and, some way behind, having a paramilitary appearance (Figure 12). By contrast, being a graduate did not rate as a pre-requisite to being a police officer.
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Figure 12: Ratings of qualities thought necessary to be a police officerPercentages
Training and standardsJust over a quarter (27%) of officers thought the proposed College of Policing a very good or fairly good idea (with about a third saying they did not know enough to come to a view) and a third that it was not a good idea. The following comments give a flavour of the different viewpoints put forward.
“A police college would be abhorrent to me. It is, in effect, paying for the privilege of inserting another level of bureaucracy into an already over regulated organization which will have the power to discipline officers and effect their careers.”
“A police college would be a good idea but I fear it will not produce any radical improvements within the police”.
“There are benefits to a Police College but this must be properly funded and regulated. Development of officers is very poor in terms of opportunities for training and opportunities for accessing and attaining qualifications relevant to their role.”
Despite the relatively high levels of opposition, respondents still had some quite strong views on what the College should actually do now that it is set up. For example, more than 70% thought it should develop core knowledge needs for training to work in the police; define skill competencies; and develop police leadership. Similarly, more than 60% of respondents thought there should be a register of accredited police practitioners, and accreditation of education institutions that deliver training.
By contrast, fewer than 50% or respondents agreed that: the college should have the power to strike officers from a register if they are found guilty of misconduct or incompetence; that it should mandate IT systems; that there should be a link between performance and pay; and that the college should have compulsory membership or fees. It seems that there may be significant opposition from within the service to the transfer of a number of powers and responsibility to the College.
Respondents also had views on which groups should be included in the remit of the College. Just over half thought it should encompass police staff and incorporate non
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Home Office Police Forces (57% and 56%, respectively). About a third (32%) thought it should include private companies involved in delivering policing, while 23% felt private investigators, and 22% private security, should also be included.
MoraleOfficers were asked if they are currently giving serious consideration to leaving the Police Service. This question does not necessarily mean officers will leave, but it is an indication of morale and their concerns about what is happening to the Police as the following response describes
“Every now and then police morale is reported to be at rock bottom. The situation with current pay and pensions has made this a reality. I consider myself to be highly motivated. I want to deliver a first class service to the public. However I expect to receive financial compensation for the difficult situations I manage for the violence I deal with and for the restrictions on my private life. 16 years ago I entered into an agreement with the Government. I would work to 55 years of age and retire with a good pension. My salary is half that of my peers who work in the private sector. I enjoy my job. This fact together with the pension reward at the end of my service is adequate compensation for the difficult nature of job. I no longer want to go to work. My goodwill has gone. I feel angry, betrayed and bitter.”
And as a more senior officer put the current situation
“I would not recommend this career to my children which, as the son of a police officer, are a shame. I have enjoyed immensely being a police officer and serving the public. However morale is lower now than I have ever known and I will not regret leaving the service in due course.”
A key question fielded in the survey was one that asked whether respondents where currently considering leaving the service. Over half, 56%, said yes: that is, over 8,000 of those answering the survey responded that they were ‘currently giving serious thought’ to leaving the police. Male officers were slightly more likely to say they were contemplating leaving than female (58% compared with 52%). There was significant variation in answers to this question across the different forces. In only seven did less than 50% of respondents answer in the positive, while in 14 forces more than 60% said they were seriously considering leaving; in three forces over 70% of respondents said this.
Officers who said they had seriously considered leaving the service were more likely to think that:
the service is changing for the worse; the work has become much harder; they are not supported by Government, Media or ACPO; Aspects of the management of the service are problematic e.g.
Promotion not on merit Not being able to influence decision Poor internal communication Experiencing bullying or harassment at work Not having access to flexible working
While many respondents indicated they were thinking of leaving the service, a similar number were also worried about the threat of being forced to retire. In the wake of the financial crisis and the cuts to police budgets, some chief constables have exercised ‘regulation 19A’, which allows them to compulsorily retire officers on the grounds of
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efficiency. One third (33%) of survey respondents said they were ‘very worried’ about this happening to them, with a further 24% saying they were ‘somewhat worried’ by the thought that they may be required to resign.
Figure 13 shows the breakdown by rank of answers to the questions relating to leaving to force and being required to resign. Both concerns generally receded as rank increased. Probationers were most worried about forced retirement but, perhaps not surprisingly, least likely to say they were seriously considering leaving.
Figure 13: Concerns about leaving the service or being forced to resign: By rankPercentages
Percentage
Organizational justiceOrganizational justice – the extent to which supervisors and senior managers treat staff in a procedurally fair manner (with dignity and respect, explaining decisions, acting in a neutral and transparent manner and allowing staff an input into decision-making processes) and in a distributively fair manner (for example in relation to the distribution of work tasks and the fairness of promotion procedures) – has been shown to be a key influence not only on ‘staff-satisfaction’, but also in relation to people’s readiness to work on behalf of organizations, comply with rules and regulations, and their attitudes towards those they serve (Colquitt et al. 2001; Tyler and Blader 2000). Work within police organizations tends to reproduce these findings (e.g. Myhill and Bradford in press). Interestingly even from the very outset, the earliest Commissioners of police had an eye to the management of officers extolling the need for superintendents to be “firm and just, kind and conciliating” on all occasions (p18-19).
A suite of questions probing respondent’s sense of procedural and other aspects of organizational justice were included in the present survey. Results from these questions are shown in Table 6, and a range of opinions were reported, with officers least happy with access to training, the fairness of promotion exercises, and the extent to which
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they have a voice in decision making processes. By contrast respondents tended to be much happier about their interpersonal relationships and, to a lesser extent, the fairness and openness of management and decision-making.
Table 6: Responses to organizational justice itemsPercentages
Experienced
little or none of the time
Promotion being achieved purely on merit 65Have the sense you can influence decisions 62Good quality communication within the organization 57Explanations for decisions made by managers 53Equal distribution of work such that no one is carrying a fair load 44Openness and honesty in way managed 41Fair, consistent and impartial decision making 39Fair and respectful interpersonal contact amongst officers and staff 18
Rank proved to be an important factor behind many of the responses (Figure 14). For example, the degree to which respondents felt promotion was being achieved on merit, and that decision-making was fair, consistent and impartial, by and large mirrored rank.
Figure 14: Percentage believing decision-making is fair and that promotion achieved on merit by rankPercentages
Multivariate analysis of organizational justiceTo investigate respondents’ perceptions of organizational justice further we used multivariate techniques to, first, create an organizational justice scale. Factor analysis
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of the items outlined in Table 6 suggested that all loaded onto one underlying construct, ‘organizational justice’ (question wordings and factor loadings are shown in Appendix Table 1). This factor was extracted as a scale (scored such that higher scores equalled more favourable views), which was saved for further analysis.
Moving on to consider what characteristics were associated with higher or lower scores on the organizational justice scale, Table 6 shows the results from a linear regression model predicting scores on this variable. Controlling for the other variables in the model women gave on average more favourable assessments than men; BME officers tended to hold a less favourable opinion than their White counterparts. Younger officers (aged under 30) tended to think the organization somewhat more just then their older colleagues, as did sergeants and senior ranks when compared to PCs. Officers who said they had experienced bullying tended to think their organization less fair.
Table 6: Results from Linear regression predicting assessments of organizational justice (high=better)
Unstandardized betas Gender (ref: male)Female 0.14***Age (ref: under 3031-40 -0.0241-50 -0.06* 51-60 -0.0460 plus -0.03Ethnicity (ref: White)BME -0.14***Rank (ref: PC)Sergeant 0.28***Senior 0.61***Experience of bullying (ref: no) -0.34***Yes 0.07** Constant
R2 0.08n 13,130
We then used assessments of organizational justice as a predictor in a series of analyses predicting some of the legitimacy measures described previously and a range of other key variables from the survey. In each case the response variable was dichotomized, such that positive responses were coded 1 and others 0; binary logistic regression models were therefore used.
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Table 7: Results from binary logistic regression models predicting measures of internal legitimacy and other factors
Betas
Service concentrates on the right thing
Feels close to force values
Has considered leaving force
Thinks police should be accountable to elected politicians
Gender (ref: male)Female 0.18*** 0.05 -0.28*** -0.38***
Age (ref: under 30)31-40 0.23*** -0.12 0.28*** 0.15
41-50 0.41*** -0.02 -0.19** 0.44***
51-60 0.47*** -0.19 0.38*** 0.45***
60 plus -0.09 -1.5 0.29 0.8
Ethnicity (ref: White)BME -0.12 -0.01 0.23** 0.28**
Rank (ref: PC)Sergeant -0.02 0.65*** -0.07 0.08
Senior 0.23*** 1.28*** -0.24*** 0.28***Experience of bullying (ref: no)Yes -0.09* -0.09 0.30*** 0.12* Feels job has got harder (ref: no)Yes -0.25*** -0.24*** 0.46*** -0.24***Feels public support police (ref: no)Yes 0.14*** 0.35*** -0.18*** 0.14** Organizational justice (high=more)
0.78*** 0.78*** -0.50*** 0.09***
Constant -0.03 -1.68*** -0.07 -1.63***
n 12,608 12,791 12,791 11,886
Table 7 shows the results from some of these analyses. The findings are highly consistent. Holding the other variables in the models constant officers who felt their organization behaved in a just and fair manner were more likely to think the police concentrates on doing the right things, more likely to feel close to force values, and less likely to have considered leaving the service. In every case the statistical effects were both significant and substantively quite large. Notably, officers who felt they experienced more organizational justice at work were also somewhat more likely to be supportive of democratic oversight of policing.
Some other findings from these models are also of note. Officers who had experienced bullying felt less aligned with their organization, were more likely to have considered leaving the service, and were more supportive of democratic oversight. Those (the large majority, recall) who felt the job had got harder were also less likely to feel
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aligned with the actions and values of the force and to have considered leaving – yet they were less likely to be supportive of democratic oversight.
By contrast, officers who felt the public supported the police, felt more aligned with force actions and values, were less likely to have considered leaving, and were more likely to support democratic oversight. One interpretation here might that officers draw a feeling of legitimacy and a sense of security (in terms of both ‘job security’ and a feeling that police are more secure in wider systems of governance) from the perception that the public support them.
Force level organizational justice dataTo further investigate the implications of organizational justice we calculated a mean score for each police force and compared this with other variables at the force level.2 One notable finding was that forces with higher mean levels of organizational justice at the time of the survey (from the point of view of their officers) also tended to be forces with lower levels of complaints, as recorded by the IPCC, whether this was all complaints (Figure 15) or only incivility complaints only (Figure 16). The association was statistically significant at the conventional 5% level in both cases.
Figure 15: IPCC complaints by PFA level organizational justice
Figure 16: IPCC complaints (incivilities only) by PFA level organizational justice2 One (small) force was excluded from this analysis as it tended to be an extreme outlier on many variables.
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The findings presented in Figures 15 and 16 should to be treated with some caution, as the complaints data pertains to 2010/11 and the survey data to the autumn of 2012. While it may be that forces that treat staff in a fair and respectful manner might expect those staff to be more likely to treat members of the public in the same way (Myhill and Bradford in press) and be more motivated in relation to the job in general, thus eliciting fewer complaints, it may equally be that a low level of public complaints simply reflects an easier policing environment, resulting in less stress inside the service and more favourable opinions of organizational justice among police officers. Be that as it may, these results suggest that the survey data presented here do connect with some ‘real world’ data in potentially interesting ways.
A focus on bullyingQuestions were asked in the survey about bullying and harassment and violence at work, issues faced in the police service as much as any other workplace. Table 8 shows that 20% of respondents reported experiencing bullying at work some or all of the time. Some 19% also reported experiencing violence at work some or all of the time, although it should be noted that the question did not probe the source of the violence, and it may be that much of this was violence from the public toward the police.
Further analysis suggested that women officers, BME officers and, strikingly, senior officers were most likely to reported experiencing bullying and harassment at work (see Figure 17). When it came to different types of bullying or harassing behaviour, Asian or Asian British officers were the most likely to experience harassment on the grounds of race or religion (see Figure 18), while women were more likely to experience harassment on the grounds of gender (24%) pregnancy or maternity (11%).Table 18: Experience of bullying or harassment at work
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Percentages
Bullying at work
Violence at work
All the time 2 4Some of the time 18 16Little of the time 33 11None of the time 47 65
Figure 17: Experience of bullying at work by rankPercentage reporting being bullied ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time
That senior officers were more likely to reporting bullying was perhaps surprising. Figure 19 suggests this effect only really ‘kicked in’ at Superintendent level (of whom there were 105 in the sample, so care must be taken not to overstate this finding). A quote from a chief inspector provides some clue as to the nature of the bullying experienced by higher ranked officers
“I can't wait to retire for a variety of reasons. Pay and conditions eroded by successive Govts, bullying from senior management at ACPO level which would result in constructive dismissal in private industry, a 'do as I say and not as I do' mentality among the top brass who abuse their positions, treat underlings as slaves and have no niceness or humility..”
A further clue may be found in the pressures of work and delivering performance by the reducing numbers of officers at the level of superintendent and chief superintendent. Latest Home Office figures show there to be 380 chief superintendents and 890 superintendents. This is a drop of 24% of Chief Superintendents and 18% of superintendents since 2010 (Figure 19). These are the ranks subjected to highest attrition, and these may be causing strains that increase the prevalence of bullying behaviour.
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Figure 18: Experience of bullying and harassment by ethnicityPercentage reporting being bullied ‘all’ or ‘most’ of the time
Figure 19: Percentage drop in ranks between 2010 and 2012Percentages
Source: Home Office
Associations between bullying and wider police activityTo investigate the implications of bullying for police activity we calculated a measure of bullying at the police force level. This comprised the proportion of respondents in the force reporting that they experience bullying some or all of the time (the mean of this variable was .21, with a standard deviation of .06).3 We found that the proportion
3 One (small) force was excluded as an outlier.
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of officers in a force reporting bullying was correlated with both the number of complaints per head of population that force received in 2010/11 (Figure 20) and its sanction detection rate in 2009/10 (Figure 21). Note that the temporal order of these data (the complaints and sanction detection data predate the data on bullying extracted from the officer survey) means that these results should be treated with some caution.
Figure 20: Complaints per 1000 population: by proportion of officers experiencing bullying
The association between bullying and complaints was positive (and statistically significant at the 5% level), suggesting, as in the case of organizational justice, that forces that allow their staff to be treated badly also garner more complaints from the public. Yet, the association between bullying and sanction detection rates was also positive – forces that were more effective in achieving sanction detections also appeared to have somewhat higher levels of bullying (although this relationship did not attain statistical significance at any conventional level).
One interpretation of these results might be that more results- or performance-driven forces generate more complaints because their emphasis is on ‘getting a result’ and not the quality of interactions with members of the public (or other aspects of performance) and, commensurably, generate stress within their workforce that leads to a greater level of bullying. While with the data currently available these relationships are impossible to disentangle, this would be a fruitful area for future research.
Figure 21: Sanction detection rate: by proportion of officers experiencing bullying
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Finally, we examined the correlation between force-level organizational justice (see above) and experiences of bullying (Figure 22). There was a strong negative correlation between these two factors at the force level, statistically significant at the 5% level. More organizationally just forces – at least from the perspective of the survey respondents – also tended to have lower levels of officers reporting being bullied on a regular basis.
Validating the surveyTwo of the issues covered in the discussion above provide insight into the nature of bias in the survey resulting from the 10 per cent response rate. First, we examined the correlation at the force level between the item concerning ‘serious thought about leaving the service’ and response rates. We found a negative correlation between answering this question in the affirmative and the response rate: in other words forces in which a lower proportion of officers said they were thinking about leaving had the higher response rates. Second, we examined the levels of reported organizational justice with the response rates from each force. This time the correlation was positive: response rates were higher in forces where mean levels of organizational justice were also higher.
Taken together, these findings suggest that that ‘disaffected’ officers were less likely to respond to the survey, and that responses from the survey are likely to be biased in a positive, not negative, direction. This is an interesting suggestion, given for example the extremely negative views respondents expressed in relation to the coalition government and, of course, the large numbers who reported considering leaving the service.Figure 22: Proportion of respondents experiencing bullying: by force organizational justice score
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9. Resources
Respondent’s perceptions about the use and distribution of resources within the service were assessed in two ways. First, officers were asked whether they felt the service spends money wisely. Only 20% of those responding to the survey agreed or strongly agreed that this was the case, while 75% disagreed or strongly disagreed (4% responded don’t know). Constables and sergeants were the least likely to agree that the service spends money wisely, while the level of agreement with the question rose with rank (Figure 23).
Second, the survey probed police officers views of private sector involvement, with a series of yes/no questions asking respondents whether they thought the private sector should be involved in a range of police activities. Some respondents felt there was some scope for private sector involvement, with 44% saying yes to involvement in managing custody suites and 31% yes call centres. However there were decisive majorities against private sector involvement in other areas:
Attending road traffic accidents – 93% opposed Interviewing witnesses or suspects – 89% opposed Scenes of crime – 83% opposed Policing public events – 79% opposed Dealing with victims of crime - 70% opposed
Figure 23: How well does the police service spend money: by rankResponses to the statement ‘The police spend money wisely’Percentages
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We conducted further analysis of these questions by constructing a simple additive scale (so respondents who had more favourable views of privatisation scored more highly). Notably, 32% of respondents scored zero on this scale, that is, they did not think there should be private sector analysis across any of the seven categories listed above. Less than 5% scored 5 or more.
Interestingly, there was little variation in mean scores on this scale across many of the variables covered elsewhere in this report, such as rank, gender, perception of organizational justice, or assessments of internal legitimacy. One explanation for this might be that views on privatisation are associated with party political opinions, something not covered by the survey.
Below is a sample of comments that indicate some of the reservations about, and aspects of the support for, the involvement of private companies in policing.
“I feel that the British Police Service is a unique organization in Law and Order around the world. There is of course issues with some of our antiquated methods or ways of obtaining equipment and facilities through which streamlining could save money. …Roles such as SOCO, call centres for the 999's and training are better carried out by those with policing knowledge and experience, it is a unique job and all parts gel together as a cog system. The current ideology of taking us apart at the seams is destroying the joined up working methods established over decades. Example, civilian enforcement officer gave out 6 parking tickets to an Audi in my town. They just issue the ticket because that’s the revenue they are employed to get. No bigger picture is looked at. In the 1990's a traffic warden working with the Police would have seen this car issued a ticket, carried out a PNC check and hey presto a stolen car would have been recovered a lot quicker. The costs to owner/insurance companies etc. minimised. This seems small to you I am sure but I can replicate this across the whole system.”
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“The thought of any privatisation in my opinion is madness. I appreciate that some roles can be civilianised, but for me to become a good police officer requires years of time in uniform / CID etc. Privatisation in my opinion hasn't worked anywhere else and is nothing more than policing on the cheap”.
“'Privatisation' - there are some areas that could be put out to private industry, for example court file administrative functions. But the main core functions that require experience, knowledge and integrity, and involve (in whatever way) evidential considerations, should remain completely within the remit of the police.”
In sum, we might conclude that while many officers who responded to the survey were open to the idea of some level of private sector involvement in the provision of (public) policing services, there was also significant opposition to this idea, and this opposition was overwhelming in regard to certain services, especially those relating to public safety and criminal procedure.
10. Conclusions
The survey reported in this paper provides some intriguing findings that can be brought together into four groups.
First, there appears to be high levels of dissent among serving officers in relation to some of the key reforms currently being enacted in policing. Most strikingly, there were widespread negative attitudes toward PCCs. Furthermore, there was dissent in respect of views about the Police College and private sector involvement in policing, with significant proportions of officers opposed to all these developments. Relatedly, there appeared to be no desire for a graduate-only police force. Finally, a large majority of respondents did not feel well supported by government or by ACPO. It seems therefore that there needs to be re-engagement between police and government and between front-line officers and senior management. In particular, police officer’s trust in the government appears to have almost completely broken down, and, unless addressed, this issue is likely to seriously undermine present and future efforts toward reform. At the moment, support for current and up-coming reforms is largely absent.
Second, police officers who responded to the survey tended to feel both that public support, while relatively high, was nonetheless diminishing, and that relationships between police and certain population groups are particularly difficult. While, as the English riots of August 2011 demonstrated, there is much evidence to support the idea that there is a need to improve relations between police and young people, in particular, there is perhaps also some cause for optimism here. Comparison with the 1960 survey data showed that a narrative of decline in public support for policing has been around for over half a century (at least) – yet recent survey data from other sources suggests that public trust and confidence in the police has actually been increasing in recent years (or is at the very least stable and in any case higher than trust in some other important professions and institutions).
Certainly there is no reason for complacency. But all available evidence suggests that public support for policing is (a) stronger than officers seem to suppose is the case and (b) susceptible to change via tools readily available to the police themselves. There is undoubtedly a need to reconfigure the relationship between police and certain sections of the community, particularly in relation to issues such as stop and search. But by
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drawing on principles of procedural justice, avoidance of harm, and the need for strong affective links between police and communities (Jackson et al 2012a; Loader in press), it should be possible for police to work toward overcoming the barriers that undoubtedly exist. This process will not be helped, however, if officers are encouraged to retreat into an ‘us and them’ bunker mentality, something which the data presented here suggest is a danger.
Third, just as principles of procedural justice offer an important guide to re-envisioning the relationship between police and public, it seems that the related concept of organizational justice offers an important insight into the dynamics of the police organization itself. Officer’s perceptions of organizational justice within their force were strongly associated with their sense of the legitimacy of the police, with support for democratic oversight of policing, and with commitment to the service. Conversely, bullying was higher in forces with lower levels of organizational justice, and both factors were negatively correlated with the level of complaints made against a force.
Work needs to be done on the management of officers within police forces – this appears to be a house divided, with rank and file officers alienated from senior ranks, from government and, potentially, from some of the public they serve. Of especial note is the extent of disagreement on some of the key measures of views about the service itself. While a large majority of respondents felt the police overall did a good job, rather fewer felt it concentrates on the doing the right thing or spends its money wisely. Only a minority felt closely aligned with the stated values of their force. One explanation of these divergent results may be that officers remain highly supportive of an abstract vision of policing and its success as an institution; they are also supportive of colleagues (believing them to be free of corruption and delivering a good service to the public, for example). Yet they are much more critical of the police as an organization, for example in terms of relations between staff and managers, or the functioning of internal processes of communication and decision-making.
The findings reported here therefore resonate with those from some of the classic studies into ‘police culture’ (see Reiner 2010 and Waddington 1999 for overviews). Officers accept and support the ‘mission’ of the police, and retain close affective links with colleagues, but are suspicious of senior managers and reform efforts. However our findings also suggest that a model for reform based on organizational justice principles may be able to address some of the issues raised above. Furthermore, there appears to be links between justice judgements within the organization and its ‘external’ activity, at least as this is assessed by complaints made against it. Issues of fairness and equity may be important strands linking both internal and external reforms of policing.
Fourth, whilst there was a high level of agreement between officers in the crime controlling mission of the police there was a divide between those who in addition thought community engagement an essential part of the police mandate. This has two immediate implications. Clearly any reconfiguring of the police will be predicated on perceptions of its purpose, and an ideological – or practical – construction of a police force exclusively driven by a crime control remit will be rather different to one that also incorporates notions community engagement. Additionally, apparent disagreement about the primary purpose of the police may provide some insight into current tensions both within forces and between the police and Government. Both clarity and some
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rapprochement are essential if the conundrum of force versus service is to be resolved and a relative balance struck between them.
References
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Bottoms, A. and Tankebe, J. (2012). Beyond procedural justice: A dialogic approach to legitimacy in criminal justice, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 102(1): 119-170.
Colquitt, J., Conlon, D., Wesson, M., Porter, C. and Ng, K. (2001), “Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research, Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3): 425-445.
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Appendix
Table 1: Organizational justice: question wordings and factor loadings
Respondents were asked to agree/disagree, with answers on four point scales
Fair, consistent and impartial decision making 0.72
Explanations for decisions made by managers 0.73
Have the sense you can influence decisions 0.63
Good quality communication within the organization 0.66
Fair and respectful interpersonal contact amongst officers and staff
0.55
Openness and honesty in way managed 0.73
Promotion being achieved purely on merit0.41
Equal distribution of work such that everyone is carrying a fair load
0.44
Factor loadings from Principal Components Analysis