Police responses to diversity: A social representational study of rural British policing in a changing representational context

Abstract

In the first decade of the 21st century, British policing faced two new challenges in how it responded to social diversity: As well as instituting reforms in response to a highly publicized report describing the British police as 'institutionally racist' (Macpherson, 1999), they faced challenges associated with rapid increases in numbers of immigrants into the UK. Studying social representations at such times of change allows access into processes, themes and value systems that may otherwise remain hidden. This paper uses social representations theory to explore interview accounts provided by regular police officers of interactions with members of minority groups. Empirically, we focus on an area of diversity policing that has received relatively little previous attention: Police work in a rural context that has recently played host to large numbers of migrant workers. Our analysis shows that interviews operate as a site of resistance in which respondents attempt to rework hegemonic representations of the police as prejudiced and to re-present themselves and their work as able to respond appropriately to diversity. Fairness as a defining characteristic of good police practice is a central representational theme that links identity construction processes to police work with minority groups. Recent immigrant groups are represented as both needing and deserving help to assimilate into British culture: Their lack of acculturation and language difficulties provide additional challenges to police work and to how this is judged as 'fair'. We discuss the broader origins and implications of police officers' understandings of fairness and the use of social representations theory to study representational fields within organizational settings.

Controversial diversity: diversity discourses and dilemmas among Swedish police recruits

“…In much of the previous research, there is an implicit point of departure that takes diversity and categories such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality to be fixed and pre-determinate as concepts. In contrast, and in line with a growing body of other research, this article directs its analysis to the processes through which these concepts are constructed, maintained, and legitimised in the police force (Holdaway 1997, Frewin and Tuffin 1998, McElhinny 2001, Dick and Cassell 2002, Holdaway and O'Neill 2007a, 2007b, Loftus 2008, Boogaard and Roggeband 2010, Morant and Edwards 2011, Morash and Haarr 2012, Lander 2013, Hansen Löfstrand and Uhnoo 2014, Rennstam and Sullivan 2018. Focusing on the processes of legitimisation renders visible how exclusionary practices are reproduced within the police, helping to find an answer to the question of how exclusionary practices based on ethnic boundaries are reproduced in a discursive climate in which diversity is officially affirmed as a guiding principle (e.g.…”

“…Focusing on the processes of legitimisation renders visible how exclusionary practices are reproduced within the police, helping to find an answer to the question of how exclusionary practices based on ethnic boundaries are reproduced in a discursive climate in which diversity is officially affirmed as a guiding principle (e.g. Shearing and Ericson 1991, McElhinny 2001, Loftus 2009, Morant and Edwards 2011, Souhami 2014, Uhnoo 2015. Thus, this article looks at how police recruits' talk constructs diversity in relation to the police force and to police work.…”

“…Accordingly, the police is to be regarded as a 'fair' authority that represents society (cf. Morant andEdwards 2011, Bradford 2014). The following quote presents an example of this discourse as used by the police recruits in this study: In this discourse, efforts to increase diversity are regarded as part of a process that will help the police to develop as a modern organisation.…”

Policing juveniles in rural communities

“…Despite these differences, both rural and metropolitan officers agreed that the seriousness of the offense and harm caused by the offense were the most important predictors of behavior, while race and gender were the least important (Schulenberg, 2010). In contrast, other scholars have found that rural officers describe handling interactions with minorities differently than whites when recalling past interactions to researchers (Morant and Edwards, 2011).…”

Disruption, Self-Presentation, and Defensive Tactics at the Threshold of Learning

“…."). Such dialogism within a conversational turn is evident when police defend themselves against accusations of racism (Morant & Edwards, 2011) and in argumentative positioning around immigration (Gillespie et al, 2012;Tsirogianni & Andreouli, 2011). People use semantic barriers, such as dichotomies, taboos, and stigma, to neutralize threatening meanings (Gillespie, 2008;Moscovici, 1976).…”