Week 5: Managing and professionalising the police

Introduction

Police officers, and whole police forces, are sometimes subject to allegations of misconduct, which are often substantiated by internal and external investigations. Occasionally, scandals erupt when particularly harmful cases of police misconduct are made public. These sometimes relate to serious crimes committed by serving officers, but can also be generated by incompetence, dishonesty or negligence.

Figure 1: Protest placards, after two police officers were charged with misconduct for sharing inappropriate crime scene photographs of two sisters who were murdered in 2020. [Description: A large group of women and some men protesting on a street and holding placards i.e. ‘Enough is enough’ and ‘March on the Met.’ One woman at the front is speaking into a megaphone.] Source: https://www.womensequality.org.uk/end_police_misogyny]

Cases of professional misconduct are a particular challenge for the police. Policing relies on public consent and trust to function effectively, and scandals which call into question the trustworthiness of the police can lead to a loss of confidence. Oversight bodies charged with investigating complaints have themselves sometimes been found wanting, further contributing to issues of trust.

Your learning this week will focus on the history of managing and professionalising the police.

By the end of this week, you should be able to:

• appreciate the historical frequency of scandals involving police officers
• understand the development of professional standards and complaints procedures
• discuss the insights this history may give to contemporary debates in policing.

You’ll start, however, with an introductory video which outlines the issues the British police are grappling with and provides a brief overview of the history relevant to these complex present-day problems.

Video