Convenient constructs : how chief police officers in England and Wales understand the right of police to exercise power
Convenient constructs : how chief police officers in England and Wales understand the right of police to exercise power
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方便的结构：英格兰和威尔士的警察局长如何理解警察行使权力的权利
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发表时间：
2018
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通讯作者：
I. Shannon
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文献类型：
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作者：
I. Shannon
警察局长是一个精英群体，他们的信仰和行为可能有助于再现、发展或改变警察的合法性。这项研究回答了这个问题，“英格兰和威尔士的警察局长如何理解警察行使权力的权利？”“参与这项研究的首席官员都援引了保护公众（尤其是最弱势群体）的职责，通过法律上的同意和解释以及相关的制衡来维持治安。”然而，本论文的重要和原创性的学术贡献是发现这些合法化结构是混乱的、冲突的，最重要的是，是方便的。在对脆弱性的模糊描述和对自愿警务的模糊概念中，混乱是显而易见的。在讨论法律时，业务独立性被描述为“灰色”，这可能会影响首席官员抵制侵犯公民自由的优先事项的能力或意愿。在同意的修辞和强制的实践之间发现了冲突。关于脆弱性的叙述和基于同意的警务也存在冲突，因为对弱势群体的狩猎威胁可能无法弥补未能解决对许多人来说更紧迫的问题。参与者声称，法律和相关的制衡对确保警察权力的正确使用很重要，这与他们对审查过程的厌恶格格不入。这些紧张和冲突使参与者感到他们受到了压力，他们的地位不稳定。关于复杂性和变化的叙述可以方便地帮助首席执行官在做出有关权力使用的决定时维护特权地位。脆弱性的模糊和同意的模糊概念也可能是方便的合法化叙述，掩盖了强迫和控制。一个主题是方便地构建一个广泛共识的“现在”，与一个更强制的“那时”形成对比，这可以掩盖当代对警察合法性的担忧。这些故事加在一起，方便地帮助首席官员，以及潜在的政治家，为公民难以挑战的警察权力的使用设定优先级，特别是当“民间恶魔”（Wells, 2016: 278）和警察神话（Emsley, 2014）被要求试图使这些议程合法化时。
Chief police officers are an elite group whose beliefs and actions may contribute to reproducing, developing or transforming police legitimacy. This research answers the question, ‘how do chief police officers in England and Wales understand the right of police to exercise power?’ The chief officers who participated in this research all invoked duties to protect the public (particularly the most vulnerable), policing by consent and explanations based in law and associated checks and balances. However, the significant and original academic contribution that this thesis makes is the finding that these legitimating constructs are confused, conflicted and, above all, convenient. Confusion was evident in vague accounts of vulnerability and hazy notions of consensual policing. When discussing law, operational independence was described as ‘grey’, which may have implications for the ability or will of chief officers to resist the imposition of priorities that infringe on civil liberties. Conflict was found between a rhetoric of consent and the practice of coercion. Narratives of vulnerability and policing by consent also clashed, as hunting threats to the vulnerable may not compensate for failures to tackle issues that are more immediate for many people. Participants’ claims that law and associated checks and balances are important in ensuring police power is used properly sat uncomfortably with their distaste for the process of scrutiny. These tensions and conflicts contributed to participants’ perceptions that they were pressured and that their positions were precarious. Narratives of complexity and change can be convenient in helping chief officers assert a privileged position when making decisions about the use of power. The vagueness of vulnerability and hazy conceptualisations of consent may also be convenient legitimating narratives, which cloak coercion and control. A leitmotif was a convenient construction of a broadly consensual ‘now’ contrasted with a more coercive ‘then’, which could camouflage contemporary concerns about police legitimacy. Together these stories conveniently help chief officers, and potentially politicians, to set priorities for the use of police power that are difficult for citizens to challenge, particularly when ‘folk devil[s]’ (Wells, 2016: 278) and policing myths (Emsley, 2014) are called on in attempts to legitimate such agendas.