'Adjusting the Police Occupational Landscape: The Case of An Garda Síochána'

This month The Differential Association found itself on the cutting edge of topicality with its chosen reading material, ‘Adjusting the Police Occupational Landscape: The Case of An Garda Síochána’ by Sarah Charman and Donal P Corcoran.

Ireland’s police service, An Garda Síochána, has had a less than ideal year so far. Amid allegations that penalty points were removed from certain favoured citizens, as well as the further burden of an organisation struggling with the concept of whistle-blowing, further development went on to suggest that the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission offices had been bugged. This last matter is currently the subject of an inquiry. However, throughout, questions have emerged on the reactions to the revelations, as much as the substance themselves. The Minister for Justice, and the Garda Commissioner reacted negatively both to the whistle-blowing as well as the suggestion that the organisation was a natural suspect in the bugging debacle. This week the Garda Commissioner resigned in the wake of yet more revelations that certain garda stations were recording incoming and out-going telephone calls, something which has a potential knock-on effect for criminal trials.

The article by Charman and Corcoran therefore presented an opportunity to engage with research that had lately taken the temperature of the organisation. In their article, Charman and Corcoran seek to explore ‘the culture of a police force under organisational reform’.

Their methodology takes the form of 38 interviews with garda who were street-level garda and not above the rank of sergeant, this range was selected to avoid possible ‘management-speak'. The interviews are conducted by Corcoran, as practitioner/researcher: ‘it was felt that this might enhance the extent to which respondents would state actual opinions and might mitigate the occasional formality of the interview process’ (7). This is an interview methodology with interesting ethical and methodological considerations, while participants may be more willing to open up, the status of the researcher as an 'insider' poses challenging questions about independence and the effect of researcher bias.

The authors argue that the persistent interest in ethnographies of police culture suggests the area has hit saturation point and they claim that the term ‘police culture’ now stands in as short-hand for a set of stereotypes.

One of these stereotypes, for example, is that there is a gap between formal rules and informal practices. The authors also cite other common understandings of police culture, including a focus on action and adventure, the glamorisation of violence, an ‘us versus them’ mentality, as well as institutional sexism and racism, and a conservative, suspicious, black and white view of the world. These findings stem from socialisation as police officers learn how to navigate their roles within their institutions.

Charman and Corcoran contend that this script is so well-worn that there is a danger that information which does not fit may be disregarded or simply not seen. Surely, they argue, some progress has been made since police ethnographies first revealed these findings? Their article is a response to Peter Manning’s (2012) contention that An Garda Síochána is resistant to change and that any change which has occurred has been superficial.

The authors seek to examine attitudes to the reforms implemented following the Morris Tribunal during which worrying levels of misconduct, unlawful activity and ‘closing of the ranks’ was noted. While the authors remark that ‘culture’ was not a term used explicitly by Morris his belief that those specific guards he investigated were not aberrant suggests a cultural issue (for a comprehensive account of this period see Vicky Conway’s ‘The Blue Wall of Silence’).

The reforms included Joint Policing Committees (to tie gardaí back into local concerns), recruitment reforms, Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission as an independent body to investigate complaints about gardaí.

The participants welcomed the new recruiting practices which sought to ensure a representative organisation. Arguably though, this means of questioning may tell us little about the problems of institutional discrimination.

Regarding the ‘blue wall of silence’ many of the interviewees reported that there was no shame in ‘grassing’ a colleague, but only when directly asked. The authors highlight that there was no discussion of personal responsibility and that it seemed this would play no part in volunteering information on the misconduct of another officer. The participants pointed to the role GSOC arguing that its establishment had meant covering for a colleague was no longer worth it.

When asked if whistle-blowing was an acceptable practice the most common answer seemed to be ‘it depends’. The factors involved in decision-making were the seriousness of the misconduct, the politics of the division and the potential consequences. The authors conclude that this suggests value-judgements on a colleague’s behaviour could lead to bad behaviour becoming normalised.

The authors conclude that their research revealed ‘significant changes as well as limited continuities’ (14). Overall they argue that the adaptability of police officers has been underestimated, and they conclude further that the cultural shift called for by the Morris Tribunal report is evident within the rank-and-file members of An Garda Síochána. The key issue flagged was solidarity and the continuing negative view of the practice of whistle-blowing. This would appear to have been confirmed by the recent unfolding news stories, as questions are asked again about solidarity versus personal responsibility.

This month’s blog was written by Lynsey Black.

The views expressed herein are those of the author alone.

Charman and Corcoran, Adjusting the Police Occupational Cultural Landscape: The Case of An Garda Síochána

This month The Differential Association will be reading Sarah Charman and Donal Corcoran's recent Policing and Society article, 'Adjusting the Police Occupational Cultural Landscape: the case of An Garda Síochána.

The article was written in response to Manning's (2012) findings that the organisation remained resistant to change and provides a more positive outlook on the ability of Gardaí to adapt. Using semi-structured interviews, the authors sought to explore how reform has been dealt with within the organisation. It makes for particularly apt reading considering the current questions over GSOC and related issues.

When: Tuesday 25th March at 6pm
Where: Mulligan's of Poolbeg Street, Dublin 2, in the back room

Eamonn Carrabine's 'Just Images'

In his Radzinowicz Prize-winning article ‘Just Images’ Eamonn Carrabine explores the issue of ethics in relation to images of atrocity and violence, especially pertinent given the increasing use of images within criminology, associated particularly with the growth of cultural criminology. Quoting Ferrell and Van de Voorde’s work which posited that we have now reached a ‘decisive moment’ (2010) where the representation of crime and crime control can no longer be meaningfully separated from the fact of crime, Carrabine provides a thorough review of the literature on the topic, presenting a foundation stone to the question of how we should use images in criminology.

The title of his article is taken from Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida (1980). Barthes sought a ‘just image’ of his mother following her death and used this to explore the nature of photographical representation. The difficulty of finding an image which accurately captured something of the intangible was Barthes’ key question. Barthes himself posited the idea of an image possessing two qualities, the stadium, that which is connoted by the image, and the punctum, more difficult to quantify but something that ‘punctured’ the viewer.

Carrabine also draws on Susan Sontag’s (1977) On Photography which contends that horrific images may absorb us, yet they simultaneously neutralise us. However Sontag later scaled down her view of the harm, and wrote in 2004 that these alarmist predictions were merely a further iteration in the cycle of fears relating to modern life.

Carrabine draws on a wide range of thinkers to illustrate his question. He contrasts the views of Howard Becker and Pierre Bourdieu, suggesting opposing theoretical frameworks for an understanding of ‘art’ and photography. Howard Becker’s approach revolves around social organisation and can be summarised as essentially moralistic, things that deserve the moniker of art versus those which do not, a concept related to finding consensus. Bourdieu’s theory stated that the value of a piece of artwork is not intrinsic and suggests that ‘hierarchies of difference’ are utilised to create value, with judgements within this stratified system used to denote taste and class.

Part of the ethical dilemma posed by images of violence and suffering is outlined by Alison Young: ‘we find the body of the spectator registering sensations relating to what she/he is seeing without undergoing or having undergone that which is depicted and seeing sensation become sense (meaning)’ (Young, 2010, in The Scene of the Crime’: 18). This shows the voyeuristic, entertainment-value which can derive from witnessing such scenes in a mediated manner, either through film or photograph. For example, one reaction to the recent feature film ‘12 Years A Slave’ may be revulsion and horror, yet if this is mingled with an awareness of the aesthetic beauty of the film is this an appropriate juxtaposition? Do ethical issues only present when a human subject is present in the image? HrairSarkissian for example uses images without subjects, providing stark images of places of execution early in the morning while they are deserted.

In a response to Carrabine’s article, Katherine Biber has suggested a ‘jurisprudence of sensitivity’ as a means of delineating those uses to which difficult images can and cannot be put. This article comes at a time when many criminologists are considering the use and issues surrounding troubling images (see for example Seal, 2012 on the effects of unearthing disturbing images in the archive and Brown and Rafter, 2013 on the possible uses of genocide films as a tool of public criminology).

If, as Carrabine has suggested, we are blasé about mediated images of suffering then why have many become such vividly remembered cultural touchstones (from his own work on Abu Ghraib, to images of Vietnam, the liberation of the concentration camps during WWII, Rwanda and so on)? Does this suggest that the use can outweigh the harm? For example, Cindy Sherman has used photography to advance awareness of a gendered perspective; while, as Carrabine shows in his article, Ingrid Pollard utilises the image as a comment on race by photographing herself in the countryside, providing a counterpoint of topics and creating tension. Further, in this new Kodak age of digital photography, can there be a blurring of object and subject through the proliferation of ‘selfies’ and self-recorded footage, for example the increasing prominence of the place of citizen journalists (as outlined by Greer andMcLaughlin in their writing on the G20 protests in London).

Sontag, in 1977 speculated that photography was avowedly anti-intervention, one who records cannot intervene and one who intervenes cannot record. However, is recording not an act of intervention in itself, changing meaning of that event, giving longevity to issues. For example, the recording on the ground during protests which occurred during the ‘Arab Spring’ provided a perspective unavailable otherwise. The ethical issue around this stems from our understandings of empathy and imagination, which is based on awareness of difference between us and others, thereby sparking concepts of individuality and the self. The utilisation of images of others within this can be a powerful tool. However, the purity of the image is always inherently contested, most recently demonstrated by the controversy surrounding Narciso Contreras.

While the depth of scholarship and cultural theory outlined in ‘Just Images’ belies any notion that the ethics of visual representation is a new phenomenon, Carrabine has taken the step of definitively bringing it within the bounds of criminology. He has posed a necessary and timely question for the discipline.

This blog was written by Lynsey Black.

The views expressed herein are those of the author alone.