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  • © 2017

Police Socialisation, Identity and Culture

Becoming Blue

Palgrave Macmillan

Authors:

  • Adds significant depth to academic and professional discussions of police culture

  • Focuses on understanding the culture of police organisation changes during austerity

  • Investigates the important influences in shaping police officers’ beliefs, attitudes and values about the nature of their job

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
  2. Introduction

    • Sarah Charman
    Pages 1-10
  3. Interpreting Police Socialisation, Identity and Culture

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11
    2. Social, Personal and Group Identity

      • Sarah Charman
      Pages 39-61
    3. Training and Education in Policing

      • Sarah Charman
      Pages 63-90
    4. Being a Police Officer: Policing Cultures

      • Sarah Charman
      Pages 127-167
  4. Researching Police Socialisation, Identity and Culture

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 169-169
    2. The Research: Aims and Methods

      • Sarah Charman
      Pages 171-187
    3. Qualitative Findings I: Learning to Be a Cop

      • Sarah Charman
      Pages 223-250
  5. Back Matter

    Pages 345-387

About this book

This book reinvigorates the debate about the origins and development of police culture within our changing social, economic and political landscape. An in-depth analysis and appreciation of the police socialisation, identity and culture literature is combined with a comprehensive four-year longitudinal study of new recruits to a police force in England. The result offers new insights into the development of, and influences upon, new police recruits who refer to themselves as a “new breed” of police officer. Adding significantly to the police culture literature, this original and empirically based research also provides valuable insights into the challenges of modern policing in an age of austerity. Scholars of policing and criminal justice, as well as police officers themselves will find this compelling reading.

Reviews

“Charman has produced an impressive book on the early years of new police officers - motivated to make a difference - which is well researched, interesting and opportune. She traces their development encountering a demanding profession and an institution in flux. They enjoy the work and camaraderie but face the dilemmas of front-line policing in a dangerously under resourced institution: they are constantly stretched and miss back up while around them is frustration, stress and demoralization. This book deserves a wide reading from students, academics and serving officers but especially - before the wheel seriously comes off - by policy makers and politicians.” (Maurice Punch, Senior Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics, UK)

“What is known as police culture has long been seen as immutable, unchanging and reactionary. This notion, hung on ideas from some fifty years ago and often repeated, is challenged here with new and imaginative research. Change is emergent in data drawn from a four year panel study of English constables. Worried about their job security, troubled by dealing with missing persons and the mentally ill, they remain committed to communication as their tool; compassion and empathy as their guiding stars, and somewhat dubious about “law enforcement” as their primary mandate. The work suggests that “police culture” is more a loose configuration of ideas than a thing. This is an important, well-written and argued book.” (Peter K. Manning, Elmer V.H, and Eileen M. Brooks Professor of Criminal justice and Criminology, Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

“Analysing data from a four year longitudinal study in which quantitative and qualitative data were gathered, Sarah Charman has charted the socialisation of police officers in an English constabulary.  New insights into their understandings of policing and key questions about the resistance of the occupational culture to change are explained clearly.  This is a mu

ch needed book that will be acknowledged by criminology’s research community and take a prominent place on student reading lists.” (Simon Holdaway, Professor of Criminology, Nottingham Trent University and Professor Emeritus of Criminology and Sociology, The University of Sheffield, UK)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

    Sarah Charman

About the author

Sarah Charman is Reader in Criminology at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Police Socialisation, Identity and Culture

  • Book Subtitle: Becoming Blue

  • Authors: Sarah Charman

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63070-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Law and Criminology, Law and Criminology (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-63069-4Published: 17 November 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-87467-8Published: 24 May 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-63070-0Published: 03 November 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 387

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 7 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Policing, Crime and Society, Criminological Theory, Sociology of Work, Self and Identity, Sociology of Culture

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access