This could be coupled with a growing alignment with other attitudes such as the importance of suspiciousness, the tendency of police officers to ‘lay low’ and ‘not to make waves’, and the advice given to the new recruits in terms of ‘covering themselves’. On the one hand, it could be argued that police officers become more sophisticated in their self-reported behaviours and their ‘storytelling’ to ‘outsiders’ that they become more politically aware of the dangers of betraying the more negative aspects of policing cultures. There are two opposing explanations for why this might be the case. At TIME A (4 weeks in), 30.4% of respondents strongly disagreed but by TIME D (4 years in), this number had almost doubled to 58.8%, becoming the most common answer. However, it is the strength of this disagreement which changes over time. The majority of respondents disagreed with this statement at each time point. Police Officers must Observe a Code of Secrecy amongst Themselves to Protect Fellow Officers (%) One of the questions asked of the new recruits was how far they agreed with the following statement: These limits appear to be especially related to the perceptions of a ‘blue code of silence’. Although the research found that comradeship is strong, it is importantly not unqualified, and there are limits to this solidarity ( Charman, 2017). ![]() ![]() So are those bonds of solidarity between officers still as strong and is their isolation from the public still as pronounced? The new police recruits in my research did not refer to the narrative of policing being ‘a job for life’, and indeed, some spoke of it rather more in terms of a ‘job for now’, framed in the language of policing being a ‘job’ rather than a ‘lifestyle’. That solidarity was considered to be a powerful bond which united police officers in their work, both in terms of the public and from external oversight via the ‘blue code of silence’ (see: Westmarland 2005 Westmarland and Rowe 2016 Chan 2003 Goldsmith 1990) By being ‘set apart’, the inevitable impact of that isolation was a promotion of the imagery of solidarity and communality amongst its members and an expectation of remaining a member of that organisation for life. The military-style rank structure, the promotion of discipline and obedience, the uniform and the 24-hour nature of the job, all fed into an institutionalised ideology of a unique organisation set apart from the public. Police culture was characterised in terms of high levels of solidarity and suspiciousness, isolation and a distinctive ‘us versus them’ mindset. Skolnick (2008, p.35) has argued that “being a police officer is a defining identity”. Much of the early research on policing referred to the culture as all-encompassing. One feature of that identity which will be the focus of this blog, is the extent to which changes to both the formal and informal workings of policing have potentially altered officers’ relationship with colleagues and the extent of the bonds of solidarity between them. I interviewed a sample of new police recruits to ‘Evermord Constabulary’ on four occasions during the first four years of their careers and considered how, and in which ways, they adapted to their new identity as police officers ( Charman, 2017). ![]() Cultural memories might shift slowly but they do shift. ![]() However, whilst it is true that politicians can arguably do very little to influence cultural change within organisational and occupational cultures, that is not to say that cultural change isn’t happening. We can perhaps therefore add ‘changing police culture’ to a ‘Top 10’ list of things that Theresa May has not managed to personally influence in recent years. In May 2014, the then Home Secretary Theresa May demanded a “ fundamental change in police culture” in response to a critical HMIC report on the police response to domestic violence and abuse.
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