Policing in a Time of Austerity: Understanding the Public Protection Paradox through Qualitative Interviews with Police Monitoring Officers

Abstract

This article examines the changing nature of public protection police work in a climate of continued austerity and increasing prosecutions for sexual offending, which have made a significant impact on the workloads of police teams who manage and monitor registered sexual offenders in the community. This increase has run parallel to a decrease in the general policing budget, which has seen it cut by an average of 22% across England and Wales [BBC. (2017). Utilizing data from observations and in-depth qualitative interviews with police officers from a force in England, this article highlights the effect which cost-saving measures have had on the professional standards of the police service in the management of sex offenders; how collaborative working practices have been hindered by these austerity measures, and finally how continual cuts have had a detrimental effect on the police’s ability to protect the public.

Dynamic assessment of registered sexual offenders: the national practitioner perspective on the use of the ‘Active risk management System’

“…This paper has also found that despite support for its use, many police practitioners felt that the comprehensiveness of ARMS has made it a lengthy and time-intensive tool to utilise. This, coupled with increasing RSO numbers and an overall decrease in resources, (Mann et al 2018) has served to transform the police offender manager role from one of proactive detection to reactive, desk based management. This increased workload has also resulted in the introduction of a number of time and cost saving measures, such as single crewing, office or phone based ARMS interviews and the failure to follow up on actions identified in the assessment, all of which potentially threaten the utility of the ARMS tool.…”

“…Public concern regarding the appropriate monitoring of sexual offenders developed in response to a media-induced preoccupation with sex offending which began in the 1990's (Nash 1999). Effective policing in this area is now considered vital to the maintenance of public confidence (Mann et al 2018) and as such, the risk assessment of such individuals has become an essential component of police accountability.…”

“…Following the introduction of public sector austerity in 2010 (HM Treasury 2010; Mann et al 2018), the prediction of risk and its consequent management became even more significant within the policing context, with assessment tools allowing police forces 'to do more with less, to target resources more efficiently and take steps to identify threats proactively' (Oswald et al 2018, p. 223).…”

White-Collar Cybercrime: Evaluating the Redefinition of a Criminological Artifact

“…An aggravating reason for this is likely that the cuts to local police force budgets effecting critical resources (manpower and equipment) are being felt. With the investigatory scope of many police fraud teams reduced and constrained within the same period (Seifert &Mather, 2013;Mann et al, 2020). The constricted focus has necessarily moved away from small and medium localised offences towards large scale national operations targeting organised offenders.…”

Failing victims, fuelling hate: challenging the harms of the ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative

“…183 fifth, CSE can be challenging and costly to investigate and prosecute. Years of austerity measures have hit criminal justice agencies hard, 184 meaning they may not be adequately resourced, trained and incentivised to respond as effectively as possible to sexual offences. Police and prosecutors involved in major CSE cases indeed described them as unusually complex and resource-intensive.…”