OBSERVING THE OBSERVERS: ETHNOGRAPHIES AND ISSUES RELATED TO RESEARCHING THE SOCIAL WORLD OF THE POLICE AND POLICING RESEARCHING THE SOCIAL WORLD OF THE POLICE AND POLICING

reductions in crime also coincide with a significant transformation within the system of juvenile justice, which has moved towards a minimal intervention approach predicated on increased diversion and non-statutory engagement. As a result, far fewer young people are coming to the attention of the police, being dealt with by formal authorities and, ultimately, being propelled into the adult criminal justice system. This paper will examine evidence from the Scottish context that the large fall in crime is in large part due to a significant shift in the prevalence, pattern and profile of youth offending; and explore what this means in terms of existing perspectives and theories of youth crime. It will also consider some of the methodological pitfalls of relying on official administrative data to study trends and patterns in crime, and lament the lack of strategic thinking around national and international data collection systems that would allow us to make a far greater contribution to addressing questions around dynamic changes in crime.

2.3 OBSERVING THE OBSERVERS: ETHNOGRAPHIES AND ISSUES RELATED TO

91 Drawing on the first empirical data, we reflect on several methodological issues encountered during the fieldwork. A first issue is the observer’s paradox or the rise of ‘observer effects’.

Should we try to neutralize these effects as much as possible or should we use them as a method to obtain even richer data? The second issue we discuss is that of ‘going native’: how do you find a tenable balance between stepping into the world of those you want to observe and –at the same time- avoiding to become ‘too involved’? The third and ethical issue we examine concerns the researcher's responsibility when confronted with wrongdoing: what do you do when you face controversial police behaviour? The exploration of these issues with field note excerpts is complemented with the review of current debates over these issues in ethnographic research.

0102 - OBSERVATIONS OF DAILY WORK ROUTINES OF PRIVATE SECURITY OFFICERS IN PUBLIC PLACES

Jan Terpstra (Netherlands)¹

1 - University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

In most studies on the culture of private security workers the police culture is taken as a frame of reference. For that reason researchers often see private security workers as wannabe cops.

This observational study on private security workers in the Netherlands who were working at three different kinds of locations (train stations, an international airport and on the streets) shows that some private security workers certainly define their work and role in terms of the police. However, to many of them the frame of service provision is much more important. In reality both cultural frames remain a sort of ideal situation that is often hard to realize for these private security workers. The main reason is that private security workers are faced with considerable job insecurity. They are part of a flexible work force. This McDonaldization of security makes them a sort of disposable workers. For that reason it is hard to develop a consistent professional identity, both as a service worker and as a quasi police officer. On the one hand they feel that their job has a lower social status, on the other hand they realize that any day the security company may transfer them to another work location and even another sort of security work. In that context it is hard to realize pride in the job. It also implies that in this context a work or service ethos of private security is hard to realize. This may have negative consequences for the degree to which security will meet the standards of a public good.

0103 - ‘RISKY’ RESEARCH AND ETHICS IN PURSUING THE CRIMINOLOGICAL IMAGINATION Matthew Bacon (United Kingdom)¹

1 - University of Sheffield

Prior to, during and after their scholarly endeavours, researchers are expected to consider and address the ethical implications of their research for the participants and social worlds in question. Reflecting on my experiences of carrying out an extensive ethnographic study of specialist detective units operating in two English police service areas, this paper discusses the real life realities of dealing with ethics in the field. It argues that just like other professionals who are working within a very strict set of guidelines and rules (i.e. the police), researchers who are practicing ethnographic methods with sensitive topics also exercise a range of discretionary practices as part of their ‘working rules’. These practices arise out of certain situations, most of which cannot be foreseen or predicted, and are influenced by gatekeepers and others in the field on whom the researcher relies to carry out the research and be kept safe. For cutting edge and novel research to take place with organisations such as the police, formulaic expectations about how research should be conducted are both unrealistic and naïve, out of touch with the real life decisions of the researcher. But perhaps that is the only way it can be as ultimately for ethnographers the lines between the personal and the professional can be somewhat blurred as we continue to invest ourselves in the processes and outcomes of the research.

0104 - LOCAL POLICING IN TRANSITION: EXAMINING THE IMPACTS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS OF POLICE REFORM IN SCOTLAND

Yvonne Hail (United Kingdom)¹

1 - Scottish Institute for Policing Research University of Dundee

Policing in Scotland has recently undergone its biggest transformation in decades, with some commentators claiming it to be the largest piece of police reform that the policing organisation in Scotland has ever experienced. Under the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act (2013) the pre-existing eight regional police forces have been amalgamated to form the national Police Service of Scotland. Under the new legislation local policing has, for the first time become a statutory requirement giving key responsibility to local commanders to devise local policing plans for each local authority area in consultation with the local authorities and communities.

This has led to questions regarding the impact and implementation of a new national police structure on local relationships in terms of the delivery of local policing. The reform has also created a significant change of role for local authorities in relation to the governance and scrutiny of local policing. This paper will explore the preliminary findings from qualitative field work conducted in two distinct case study areas in Scotland which included semi structured

93 level of the policing organisation at the time of implementation raising questions as the level, pace and management of reform.

0105 - CAPITAL CITY POLICE PATROL CULTURE, AUTONOMY AND DOMINION Demarée Chaim (Belgium)¹; Enhus Els (Belgium)¹

1 - Department of Criminology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

This panel presentation elaborates on findings of a research about the police occupational culture (POC) in local police units in Brussels, the Belgian capital city. The main methods being applied are participant observation and mini-interviews with police patrol officers in order to observe and participate in their daily working environment, also to ask questions about attitudes, worldviews and routine actions and strategies. Although the POC, as a concept of culture, may present itself easily as a workable or even testable framework, it is a rather ambiguous concept with diverging ways of interpretation and thus difficulties to define, even research it accordingly. Classic conceptions of the POC can be rather troublesome as they seemingly contributed to an image of the POC being homogeneous, static and universal.

Moreover, it’s often portrayed as a deterministic ‘top-down’ stress-coping mechanism rendering police officers as passive cultural dopes in a stressful and unpredictable working environment riddled with uncertainties. However, overemphasising the impact of environmental factors withers away insights in how meanings and interpretations, in turn, shape the working environment and structure action strategies. Building on valuable insights of cultural criminology and – sociology in particular, the research’s conceptual starting point is inspired by the notion of a relative autonomy of culture and pragmatism, highlighting how culture, as a toolkit, is being ‘used’ to dynamically structure action and/or how policing meanings and images contribute to the maintenance of social order. These police patterns of meanings and actions are in particular meaningful when studied in relation to dominion or territorial control; e.g. how such policing ‘styles’ are being constructed, shaped and applied in part by interpretations of autonomy, authority, discretion and morality. This presentation will, then, highlight a sub-theme of this research, e.g. the cultural themes and assumptions related to territorial division and dominion and how these features outline a well-defined but profoundly obscured policing style, which is oriented towards (harsh) enforcement of police authority and power, similarly shaping police isolation by providing a framework for ‘street-justice’ practices; therefore mitigating accountability and contributing to ‘dark number’

problems regarding rank-and-file policing strategies in specific neighbourhoods.

2.4 SECURITY AND THE PRISON CLIMATE