POLICING AND DIVERSITY:THE INTERNAL DIMENSION

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POLICING AND DIVERSITYTHE INTERNAL DIMENSION

• MIKE KILROE
• FEBRUARY 2009

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OUTLINE OF SESSION

• Policing and Diversity The Internal Dimension
• Diversity as a Central Issue for Organisations
• The Police Service and Monoculture
• The Cultural Characteristics of the Police
• Gender and Monocultures
• Documentary Undercover Copper

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DIVERSITY AS A CENTRAL ORGANISATIONAL ISSUE

• What is Diversity?
• Diversity as a central Issue for organisations
  (Beverly Becker 1997)
• Recognising difference
• Culture change
• Shared goals
• Inclusion
• Empowerment

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DIVERSITY AS A CENTRAL ORGANISATIONAL ISSUE

• Managing Diversity (Becker 1997)
• Internal Dimension All employees valued
• External Dimension Responding to change
• Addressing Inequalities-Stereotypes/preconceived
  ideas
• Racism/Sexism/Homophobia cannot be managed away

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ORGANISATIONAL RESPONSES TO DIVERSITY

• Roosevelt (1995)
• Exclusion selective approaches to recruitment/
  partnerships/customers
• Denial Non-recognition of difference
• Suppression Suppressing difference/ Fitting In
  /Avoiding conflict /The importance of maintaining
  team spirit

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BARRIERS TOWARDS DIVERSITY

• Richard Daft 1997
• Monocultures - Sameness
• Ethnocentrism - One's own culture is superior to
  others
• Glass Ceilings Cultures of exclusion
• Non understanding of current reality
• Cynicism
• Hidden personal agendas - cliques- interest
  groups
• Reluctance to invest in training other than for
  immediate needs
• Karash 1999
• Traditional authoritarian bureaucracies (Police)

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GENDER, ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND EXCLUSION

• Parkin and Maddock (1995)
• A gender typology of organisational cultures
  operating in public sector organisations such as
  Health Service and the Police Service
• They included
• Barrack Yard Cultures
• Locker Room Cultures
• Feminist Pretender Cultures
• Indirect Bullying Cultures

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THE OCCUPATIONAL CULTURE OF THE POLICE

• THE POLICE AS A MONOCULTURE
• Monocultures are cultures that accept one way of
  doing things (Richard Daft 1997)
• The characteristics of monocultures
• Ideal Types
• Occupational culture and socialisation

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CULTURE PERPETUATION

• Organisational culture is sustained through the
  way new members are selected, trained,
  socialised.. (Richard Daft 1997)
• Persons who can demonstrate characteristics and
  traits like those possessed by the officers
  already on the force stand a greater chance of
  being hired (Harrison 1998)

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THE MONOCULTURAL NATURE OF POLICING

• EMSLEY 1996
• A rough masculine culture
• Drinking/gambling
• Abuse of power
• A norm of heterosexuality
• Barrack communities
• Hierarchical
• A specific language
• Its unique myths, symbols and traditions

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THE CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POLICE

• Authoritarian
• Masculine
• Conservative
• A Traditional outlook
• Isolation
• Solidarity
• The Thin Blue Line
• IMPLICATIONS
• Discrimination
• Racism/Sexism etc
• Corruption/deviance
• Marginalisation of non ideal types
• See Holdaway Resigners (1997)

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SEXISM AND POLICING

• Researcher, Carol Adams highlighted the sexist
  nature of police culture in 2000
• I asked the police officer who was about to
  leave to invite the next interviewee in. As I sat
  waiting for him to enter, I heard the incoming
  officer whisper What's she like then? I am in no
  doubt this question referred to what I was like
  as a woman, and not as a research interviewer.

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GENDER,MONOCULTURES AND POLICING

• Solidarity/Camaraderie
• Masculine culture
• Traditionally women excluded from this
• Women officers as the frail blue line (Brown
  Glover 1998)
• Deaths as a terrible price to play for
  equality (Brown Glover 1998)

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WOMEN AND POLICING A HISTORICAL EVALUATION

• Women police introduced during World War 1
• Via pressure from The Women's Freedom League
• Voluntary basis (London) No power of arrest
• In later decades standardised pay and conditions
• Duties- dealing with women-Children-statements
  etc
• Setting the formal role of women for the next 45
  years (Jones 1986)
• Largely segregated from male officers until
  1970s
• Legislation in 1970s
• Equal Pay Act (1970)
• Sex Discrimination Act (1975)
• Seeing .. the removal of the traditional and
  well established sexual division of labour
  (Jones 1986)

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THE GLASS CEILING !

• Policewomen subject to sexual harassment by male
  colleagues (Smith Gray 1983)
• Exclusion/marginalisation from areas such as
  C.I.D
• The WPC belongs to the feminine world of
  emotion, sensitivity and niceties like
  paperwork, the PC is the man of action and
  strength (Fielding Fielding 1992)
• The Feminisation of Policing (Walklate 1997)
• Women officers experiencing higher levels of
  stress/anxiety because of sceptical attitudes
  towards capabilities. (Holdaway 1998)
• Breaking through the Glass Ceiling!!
• Women Firearms Officers

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CRACKS IN THE GLASS CEILING?

• By 1994 three women achieve rank of deputy chief
  constable
• In 1995 Pauline Clare head of Lancashire Police
• Maria Wallis becomes Chief Constable of Devon
  Cornwall in 2002
• Barbara Wilding becomes Deputy Assistant
  Commissioner at the Met in 2003 and Chief
  Constable of South Wales in 2004
• Julie Spence becomes Chief Constable of
  Cambridgeshire in 2004
• Cressida Dick becomes Deputy Assistant
  Commissioner at the Met in 2006

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WOMEN CHIEF CONSTABLES IN ENGLAND/WALES

• Julie Spence Cambridgeshire
• Sara Thornton Thames
• Barbara Wilding South Wales
• Gillian Parker Bedfordshire
• Julia Hodson Nottinghamshire

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THE GENDER AGENDA

• 2001 The British Association of Women in Policing
  (BAWP) developed the document the Gender Agenda
• Produces a series of recommendations with regard
  to policing practices and issues of gender within
  the police service
• Enhancing the role of women at all levels of the
  service
• However, according to research (Jennifer Brown
  Surrey University 2006) the public still retains
  gender-led expectations regarding police and
  policing