Reflexive Coppers: Adaptive Challenges in Policing

8/2/2019 Reflexive Coppers: Adaptive Challenges in Policing

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Reflexive CoppeRs:

AdAptive ChAllenges in poliCing

Jonathan Rowson

Emma Lindley

Foreword by Betsy Stanko FRSA

A 2012


2/243 Reflexive CoppeRs: AdAptive ChAllenges in poliCing

CoNTeNTs

Foreword by Proessor Betsy Stanko FRSA 4

1.Introduction 5

Social Brain and Steer 5

Research Overview 5

Why Police? 6

Adaptive Challenges 6

2. Preliminary Research: Culture and Cognition 8

Habits 8

Attention 9

Decisions 10

3. Deliberative Workshops: Steer and the Police 11

Principle 1 Use your habitat to shape your habits 11Principle 2 Trust your gut, but pay attention 12

Principle 3 Take your time, literally 14

Principle 4 Be inuenced by others, but know your own mind 16

Principle 5 Dont let consistency get in the way o learning 17

4. Assessing the Steer Approach 19

What participants hoped to gain 19

Successully implementing the principles 19

Barriers to implementing the principles 20

Intentions to use the principles in the uture20

5. Discussion, Implications and Recommendations 21

New Leadership 21

Police Culture: Soldiers or Social Workers? 21

Research 22

Training 22

Practice 23

Transorming Behaviour Change 23



AbouT The RsA

The RSA has been a source o ideas, innovation and civic enterprise or over 250years. In the light o new challenges and opportunities or the human race ourpurpose is to encourage the development o a principled, prosperous society byidentiying and releasing human potential. This is reected in the organisationsrecent commitment to the pursuit o what it calls 21st century enlightenment.

Through lectures, events, pamphlets and commissions, the RSA provides a ow orich ideas and inspiration or what might be realised in a more enlightened world;essential to progress but insucient without action. RSA Projects aim to bridge thisgap between thinking and action. We put our ideas to work or the common good.By researching, designing and testing new ways o living, we hope to oster a moreinventive, resourceul and ullled society. Through our Fellowship o 27,000 peoplethe RSA aims to be a source o capacity, commitment and innovation in communitiesrom the global to the local.

AbouT The AuThoRs

Dr Jonathan Rowson leads the Social Brain project at the RSA. Jonathan holds a rstclass degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics rom Oxord University, an Ed.Mrom Harvard University in Mind, Brain and Education, and a Doctoral degree romBristol University on the concept o wisdom. A chess Grandmaster, Jonathan wasBritish Champion or three consecutive years 2004-6, and writes a weekly column orScotlands national paper, the Herald.

Dr Emma Lindley is Senior Researcher on the Social Brain Project. Emma holds arst class degree in English Language and Literature rom Liverpool University, anMSc in Educational Research and an ESRC unded PhD, both rom the Universityo Manchester. Emmas research led to the development o the Inclusive Dialogueapproach to education about mental illness and has received media attention romthe BBC and the Times Educational Supplement.



foReWoRD: proessor Betsy stAnko

Seeing onesel through the eyes o another is always useul. In the ollowingexploratory study, through its Social Brain programme, the RSA asked how policeocers can choose and shape habits. Policing is known or its culture and its crat.Largely a proession moulded through shared, experientially based knowledge, the

proession is now being soundly challenged to expand its crat repertoire to embracethe growing body o evidence about what works.

There is a growing expectation that public servants use best evidence to provide thebest service. Adapting to this innovation in policing requires challenging old habits,as this research suggests. Yet the question remains as to whether any one individualwithin the police proession can swim against the traditional tide o doing things.As the researchers themselves propose:

Thinking about police work rom the perspective o adaptive challenges, it seemsthat in a working culture dened by strict adherence to protocol, rank structure,

and risk aversion, communicating clearly and honestly may not come easily,whether internally or out in the community.

This exploratory study implicitly suggests that there needs to be institutionalsupport or changing police culture. Better decision making and use o inormationneeds to be an expectation o leadership. Transparency o decision making o thepolice, the use o robust inormation and an outcome ocused service will, I believe,encourage more public engagement and public accountability.

Policing is changing, but perhaps not at a pace we would like. This piece o workseeks to stimulate debate, and to help lay the ground work or uture research, andultimately improvement in a vital public service.

Professor Betsy Stanko

Ma pc scemu p, ra hwa, U lw, rsA

This exploratorystudy implicitly suggeststhat there needs to beinstitutional support orchanging police culture. prfr By sak



1. iNTRoDuCTioN

soCiAl bRAiN AND sTeeR

This project took place as part o the RSAs Social Brain programme o research.We have developed a perspective on behaviour change that is holistic, in the sense

that it targets both automatic and controlled thought processes, and reexive, in thesense that it tries to improve the ecacy o our actions by enriching sel-awarenessand recognising that such sel-awareness is always grounded in relationships andculture. These points were examined in depth in our Steer report, 1 which describeda deliberative research process with the general public on ve principles o decision-making. 2 The ocus o our work has since expanded and we are now interested inexploring how we may become better able to choose and shape our habits, becomemore mindul o our patterns oattention, in addition to becoming more aware othe basis on which we make and justiy decisions.

ReseARCh oveRvieW

This report describes exploratory research with uniormed members o the policeservice in which the RSA sought to understand how our approach to behaviourchange might be applicable to police work. This exploratory study represents aninvestigational stage in a broader attempt to urther develop our distinct perspectiveon behaviour change. Drawing on a range o research rom several disciplines, Steerenables people to appraise situations and make judgements about when they shouldtrust, or be wary o, their gut instincts, rational convictions or environmentalinuences. It has been tested with members o the public and taxi drivers, and thisstudy was designed to establish whether the approach might be appropriate to usewith the police service.

We began the process by making contact with senior police ocers who are RSAFellows. We arranged to interview our ocers on a one to one basis. The purposeo these interviews was to nd out more about cultures within the police orce, and tobegin to explore whether and how the principle o RSAs Steer approach to behaviourmight be applied in these distinct settings. We recognise that the police service is adiverse organisation, and there is no monolithic police brain, but we worked on theunderstanding that there are common concerns and a shared culture that plays outdiferently depending on varying individual proles and proessional contexts.

With the input o the our senior ocers, we modied the core principles rom therst Steer report in an attempt to make them pertinent to the police. The next stagewas to recruit a larger number o police ocers to participate in a series o twodeliberative workshops. The intention was to explore Steer principles withparticipants, who would then experiment with applying them, and keeping diarieso their experiences, beore sharing and examining these in a second workshop.The rst workshop was well attended, but only a small number o participants keptdiaries and attended the second workshop. Nevertheless, we generated a rich corpuso data, which gave considerable insight into the challenges acing police and theways in which RSAs engaged approach to behaviour change might be able to helpthem better rise to these challenges.

Our central objective was to explore with police ocers whether engaging withthese kinds o considerations is easible and useul. The aim was not to gather

evidence or the ecacy o our intervention, or demonstrate the impact o takingpart in the workshops on the participants, though we hoped we might learnsomething about what works in that regard. Rather, it was important to us to clariywhether working in this way is tractable in the context o important public servicesthat are under pressure to change in various ways, in this case the police service.

We recognise that thepolice service is a diverseorganisation, and thereis no monolithic policebrain, but we workedon the understandingthat there are commonconcerns and a sharedculture that plays outdierently dependingon varying individualproles and proessionalcontexts.

1 g, M. (Ju 2010). Steer:Mastering our Behaviour throughInstinct, Environment and Reason. rsA.

2 i s, c w:1. hab , 2. g w u u,bu a a mm wm w a, 3. W cu, ju , 4. W u wa, bac a a ,5. W u ca u u, a .



Why poliCe?

You need a service that can understand its own inormation. By sak 3

We chose to work with police or a variety o reasons. It appears that the policeservice is concerned with at least three diferent kinds o interrelated behaviourchange: the behaviour o ocers, the behaviour o criminals, and the behaviouro potential and actual victims o crime. Secondly, most police are responsible ortheir own actions, but work in teams and in contexts where social norms have astrong inuence on behaviour. Thirdly, the police service is an experientially basedoccupation, so there is a need to direct theoretical knowledge towards explainingand inorming practical know-how.

Fourthly, as Proessor Stankos quotation above suggests, there appeared to beinteresting challenges about the role o inormation in the police service. Ouraim was not to add to the enormous research data on policing, but rather to suggestsome reasons why that inormation may not be readily utilised or understood onthe ground. Fithly, exploratory interviews suggested that although police ocersreceive lots o training, the status o that training varies enormously, with manyreporting that advice like orget all that - this is the real world now is pervasive. Again,

we wanted to make some sense o why that might be the case. Finally, the FlanaganReports suggestion that improving the quality o interactions between police andpublic was imperative suggested that resh insights into cognitive railties, includingvarious orms o bias, o police and public alike, may useully inorm this objective.4

Previous RSA research carried out in 2009 ound that, or reasons highlighted byFlanagan, police were working against their advantages in terms o collaboratingefectively with the public and other organisations.5 While the police continue to beinspected against a range o perormance measures and are also accountable ordelivering against a range o locally dened targets and priorities, they do not seem tobe making the most o their interactions with the public. Future challenges pointed to

the need or the police to build systems and a workorce that are better at making andacilitating decisions, managing risk, using inormation and intelligence, and teamworking. It was argued that ocers will need greater emotional intelligence, greaterability to use discretion, and will need to be more outcome rather than process-ocused.

These improvements are needed to provide greater eciency at a system level andalso to support broader strategic ambitions to better engage with the public andother partners. The resulting notion o qualitative productivity requires not onlythat service delivery becomes more ecient, but also that there is a shit in the ocusrom outputs to outcomes, i.e. the concern not only with measuring what has beendone, but also with evaluating the impact o what has been done. The policethereore also need an impact and perormance assessment ramework that captures

and drives qualitative outcomes. The research described here seeks to play a smallpart in inorming the development o this qualitative productivity.6

ADApTive ChAlleNges

The most common leadership ailure stems rom attempting to apply technicalsolutions to adaptive challenges. R hfz 7

Police work involves a variety o complex communication challenges, both withinthe police service and in dealings with the public. Taking these relational challengesseriously means recognising that both these types o communication stem rom

deeper challenges o intrapersonal communication between diferent parts oonesel, and the need to develop an internal language to explore and resolve thesepersonal challenges that all police inevitably encounter. We seek to show below whythis challenge should be recognised as important to police work, and argue that thereis a danger o relying on technical (policy) solutions to address such proound

It appears that the policeservice is concernedwith at least threedierent kinds ointerrelated behaviourchange: the behaviouro ocers, thebehaviour o criminals,and the behaviour opotential and actualvictims o crime.

3 ha rac, sa aAa, l Ma pcc, w a a 2020/rsA pubc sc summ.

4 aaa, r. (2008). rw pc, [o], Aaab: ://

www../rw__pc_a_r.

5 rsA pjc, npiA Quaapuc: nbu pcsc d ia, [o],Aaab: ://www.a./__aa/a/_/0020/274430/rsA-npiA-smum-w.

6 ib

7 hz, r., l, M. & gaw,A. (2009). Practice of AdaptiveLeadership: Tools and Tactics forChanging your Organization and theWorld. haa Bu p B.



adaptive (personal and cultural) challenges. As leadership theorist Ron Heietz hasargued, adaptive challenges require changes in values, belies and attitudes and notjust behaviours, and they can only be addressed at a personal level, which is why theyare dicult to identiy and easy to deny, especially in strictly hierarchical anddisciplined services like the police.

Nonetheless, there are qualitative aspects o policing that are not about marshallingexisting expertise to target discrete problems, but rather adaptive challenges that

require police to develop sel-awareness and mental complexity in their own way.As an analogy, a diet pill is a technical solution to weight loss, while creating andmaintaining a new exercise habit is an adaptive challenge. In policing, the Anti-SocialBehaviour Order (ASBO) might be regarded as a technical solution, whereas theadaptive challenge would seek to engage parents, youth workers, and the broadercommunity to support a young person not to behave anti-socially. Likewise, sendingpolice ocers to attend a certain number o standard training courses may not be thesolution to the adaptive challenges they ace in relating to each other and the public,unless those training courses allow police to see how this training can beaccommodated in the context o the other constraints and demands o their work.

For this kind o adaptive challenge, it is possible police need more tools or sel-

examination rather than more proessional training. What is needul may not beinstruction in how to do the job as such, but more awareness o how to criticallyengage with that kind o instruction, and shape their approach to the jobaccordingly. The actions o police are constrained by innumerable conditions,including contextual specics, job specications and protocol. However, theirapproach to these conditions depends upon a prior set o conditions in their ownnature. In the language o adult development theorist Robert Kegan, the RSA isstriving to gradually help people develop rom being the conditions o their action -passive subjects, shaped by biological and social constraints we cannot control, tohaving those conditions, whereby we begin to proactively shape our personal andproessional lives with an awareness o them.

Thinking about police work rom the perspective o adaptive challenges, it seemsthat in a working culture dened by strict adherence to protocol, rank structuresand risk aversion, communicating clearly and honestly may not come easily, whetherinternally or out in the community.

In so ar as this is the case, we believe our engaged approach to behaviour change mayhelp police to meet the adaptive challenges they ace, by ofering some experience oinormed sel-reection, and a language to talk about how and when it connects torecurring challenges at work.8

There are qualitativeaspects o policingthat are not aboutmarshalling existingexpertise to targetdiscrete problems,but rather adaptivechallenges that requirepolice to developsel-awareness andmental complexity.

8 ka, r. & la, l. (2002). Howthe Way We Talk Can Change theWay We Work: Seven Languages forTransformation. J-Ba.



We conducted our in depth semi-structured interviews with senior ocers in which weasked them to respond to the ve principles about decision making in our Steer report.9The aim was to decide which knowledge relating to brains and behaviour to explorewith the police ocers taking part in the second stage o our research. In the process

we gleaned some useul insights into police culture and cognition more generally thatseemed relevant to the wider aims o the Social Brain project. We elt it was importantto attend careully to what we learned about police culture and cognition and examinehow these ndings related to our key interest in habits, attention and decisions. In thesection that ollows, we present the results o this preliminary research. Although wehave organised these ndings in relation to our established interest in the three themesidentied above, the process o analysis was grounded in the data. We used content andthematic analysis to establish themes o central importance to the participants, usingtheir own language to speciy the themes. A secondary analytic task was to determinehow these themes related to our domains o interest.

hAbiTs

It rapidly became clear rom our discussions that habits have a range o importantinuences on how police ocers do their jobs. What it means to be a police ocerinvolves understanding a set o cultural expectations including operating within anentrenched hierarchy and negotiating implicit conceptions o what is appropriate atdiferent levels o that hierarchy.

Ocers explained that there are ormal and inormal hierarchies in a team: You veryquickly know who to ask, who you dont want to be posted with. This all happens withinthe rst two to three weeks o being posted.. One participant described the policeservice in general as Such a total institution - rom the word go, you are given advice

rom more experienced people about appropriate behaviour. And inappropriatebehaviour is really scorned. And then that is adopted as normal behaviour and gutand perhaps there is too much o that and too little o thought processes interering.In this context, Career progression means: keep your nose clean, get a good number oarrests, take the exams.

It was suggested that the need to attach onesel to somebody internally or promotionalpurposes also serves to perpetuate habitual behaviour and hierarchical norms too. Forinstance: I you are trying to make your way - youve got to learn when to speak andwhen to keep your mouth shut. It was suggested that this actor is elt more intenselynow, because the educational level o ocers is relatively high compared to previousgenerations, and There are lots o people who want to say what they cant say.

Despite this constant awareness o how others might react to what one says and does,ocers are made acutely aware that the responsibility or decision making lies at thelevel o the person making the decision in real time. This is reinorced with languagelike: .you are a warranted ocer, you are the person who is given the warrant,you are the person on the street who will make the decision as a warranted ocer. Itwas elt that an awareness o this relationship between responsibility and warrantreinorces habitual behaviour, because it requires ocers to ollow known procedures,and also to write up events as i they had done so, even i events were diferent. I anocer undertakes something in an unconventional way, it is considered very risky interms o uture disciplinary procedures, but i they take a more conventional approach,

seniors will be much more orgiving.

However, while habitualised behaviours can be ecient, they are not always necessarilyefective. Some concern was expressed about the very idea o getting police to think

2. pRelimiNARy ReseARCh:CUltUre And Cognition

What it means to bea police ocer involvesunderstanding a set ocultural expectationsincluding operatingwithin an entrenchedhierarchy andnegotiating implicitconceptions o what isappropriate at dierentlevels o that hierarchy.

9 o. c.



about their behaviour: I you are going to ask police ocers to think about theiractivity, thats going to cause them more work - will they want that? They may eel theyare less sae, because you are taking away habitualised orms o behaviour. Policeocers rely on these habitual patterns because they are reinorced by amiliar habitats,a point indicated by the claim that: Police are reluctant to move out o their manor.The associated language was my area, thats where I belong, the patch, thecomrades. It was remarked that appropriate behaviour was closely linked to areaknowledge, and one even said that Youll rarely nd that ocers based in North

London work in South London.

A deeper point here is the perception that senior ocers have o junior ocers, and theextent to which they treat them as automatons, rather than autonomous agents: Theclever ones, and urther up the treebecome aware that what they are supervising andmanaging is a group o automatic pilot behaviourIts very pervasive, it has to be.On the one hand this comment sounds credible and plausible, but at the same time itsslightly chilling, both to think o junior police operating as uncritical robots and seniorocers taking decisions on that understanding.

This range o examples demonstrates that habitual behaviour is, unsurprisingly, rmlyentrenched in police culture. The habits and cultural norms o the police make it almost

impossible or junior ocers to swim against the tide, or take more unconventionalapproaches to particular challenges within their work. There are many potentialdisadvantages to this situation, which makes increasing sel-awareness and reexivity adesirable i somewhat subversive aim.

ATTeNTioN

The need to take time and pay attention in order to make good decisions is undoubtedly achallenge or police who are oten under pressure to do the right thing and do it immediately.This strand emerged less prominently than habits and decisions, but the examples o theimportance o attention to good policing were nevertheless striking. Based on his service in theorce, and his more recent experience taking critical decisions in real time, a senior ocerremarked: Nothing makes me doubt mysel more than when everybody agrees with me.To remind himsel not to rush to judgment, this senior ocer carries a poem by Robert Graveswith him at all times, which he pulled out o his briecase during his interview.

In Broken Images

He is quick, thinking in clear images;I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the act,Questioning their relevance, I question the act.

When the act ails him, he questions his senses;When the act ails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new conusion o his understanding;I in a new understanding o my conusion.

Robert Graves

It was elt that anawareness o thisrelationship betweenresponsibility andwarrant reinorceshabitual behaviour,because it requiresocers to ollowknown procedures,and also to write upevents as i they haddone so, even i eventswere dierent.



Paying attention to gut instinct was something our participants held as an importantcomponent o skilled policing. Years o experience in any given domain gives rise tosophisticated orms o pattern recognition, in which expertise in paying attention tocertain things is developed. This act was captured by our participants with theexpression policemans twitch, or coppers nose, both o which were used inresponse to the Steer principle trust your gut and led one participant to remark thatSometimes when we dont think we are more efective than when we do.

DeCisioNs

Decision-making emerged as a very important strand o police work, and this topicresonated prooundly with our participants. How decisions are made and the pres-sures on police to make them both quickly and efectively were obviously matterso considerable concern.

One participant expressed the view that there are basically three types o choice,those between good and bad, good versus good and bad versus bad. The tricki-est type o decision is the last, where aiming or the least bad outcome becomesthe prime challenge. Given that risk mitigation is not risk elimination, it was eltthat the duty to protect lie and the duty to protect way o lie are oten at log-

gerheads. For instance, the London tube remains an open system, and unless youwant airport style security at every eeder point to the tube, it remains a hazard.

Clearly such decisions require a great deal o thought, but the picture painted by ourparticipants begs the question o when and whether it is appropriate or police tothink or themselves: One participant suggested that A lot o police decisionmaking is done without thoughtand oten without an awareness o the role o anydecision making interering.. Participants placed more emphasis on institutionalreinorcement, with one reerring to: The power o the group, the power o theinstitution, the power o the tradition. Another concurred that there was a need tomake police more aware o the basis o the autonomy they do have: You have to get

people to understand processes o thinking - that people realise that they do haveopportunities to make decisions.

However, being lower down the hierarchy clearly afects polices views o their role inmaking decisions. Ocers described a tendency or junior members to err on the sideo not speaking when around more senior ocers, identiying a negativeconsequence that some senior ocers become aware that this might prevent themrom reaching an efective decision. One senior ocer remarked that when workingin a live situation with a team, he requently says words to the efect: This is thedecision as I understand it. Then he stops the room and asks, Does anybody thinkdiferent?. It was remarked that this is extremely important because police oten dowork on diferent assumptions. This participant said he wanted this kind o process

to become established practice - not merely giving the statement declaratively, butsharing the thought process that led to it: So this is the situation as I understand it,and thereore, Im interested in A, B or CI need you to stick your hand up andshout i the situation changes.

The need to be sure that everybody involved shares the same assumptions, and to makedecisions based on up-to-date inormation should not however be understood asreasons to avoid making a decision. It should never be: I havent got the whole picturethereore I cant make a decision. But make sure you have worked through all that youcan and that a hidden bias is not shaping you. It was suggested that a good seniorocer wanders round and speaks to everybody in the room, because sometimes the

key bit o inormation is with the shyest person. Another participant remarked that itwas a masculine culture, where it is elt that what you say should have a clear point,but sometimes it is the hal-baked insights that lead to progress.10 Partly or thisreason, he remarked that he tells those working with him on a real-time decision: Idont want you to go home eeling uneasy about something you should have said.

How decisions aremade and the pressureson police to make themboth quickly andeectively wereobviously matters oconsiderable concern.

10 Cax, g. (1998). Hare BrainTortoise Mind: Why IntelligenceIncreases when you Think Less. uea.



3. DelibeRATive WoRkshops:

steer And the poliCe

Our analysis o what the senior police said conrmed our suspicion that our ideaswere indeed highly relevant to the work o the orce. With their help, we adjusted theoriginal ve Steer principles, incorporating what we had learned about police culturerom the rst stage o our research. The ve principles listed below represent a

distillation o some key insights into human nature that we believed would beparticularly relevant to police, and we reramed the principles as questions tostimulate the discussion:

1. Use your habitat to shape your habits.How does the working environment shape your automatic behaviour?

2. Trust your gut, but remember to pay attention.Your intuition, based on proessional experience, is powerul, but how can youremain vigilant in situations where something genuinely new is happening?

3. Take your time, literally.There are three main decision speeds - automatic, reective and mulling - whichdo you use most and why?

4. Be inuenced by others, but know your own voice.You need others to help you think, but how can you guard against groupthink?

5. Dont let consistency get in the way o learning.The desire to reduce cognitive dissonance oten prevents us rom understandingwhat really happened - how can we avoid this?

In the second phase o our research we took these principles to a diverse group o

police ocers, and used them as a springboard or discussion. Fiteen police ocersincluding inspectors, sergeants, police constables, special constables and a traineedetective constable attended a deliberative workshop. In this workshop, we gave tenminute presentations on each o the principles, with each presentation ollowed bysmall group and plenary discussion. The primary question driving this workshopwas how might the ve Steer principles be benecial to the work o the police?. Wealso used this question as the organising ramework or analysis, and particularlysalient points rom across the data were grouped under each o the principleheadings (master themes). The analysis was not restricted to these ve points, and asecond pass over the data was conducted in order to identiy unanticipated themesor overarching issues that ran across all o the areas. Data under each o the master

themes were then sorted into sub themes. Any sub-themes with very ew citationswere at this point either eliminated or incorporated into other closely related subthemes. Our ndings are presented according to the ve principles.

3.1 pRiNCiple 1 - use youR hAbiTAT To shApe youR hAbiTs

Habits are driven by our automatic (principally limbic) system, and oten eelautomatic due to the way our brains predict events, and reward us when thosepredications are accurate, principally through the release o the eel good actorin the orm o dopamine. But habits are acquired and conditioned behaviours ratherthan strictly automatic. They are second nature rather than rst, and thereoreamenable to the inuence o deliberation and reection. Samuel Johnson remarked

that The chains o habit are too weak to be elt until they are too strong to be brokenbut with a deeper understanding o how habits orm and how they are reinorced, weare better able to shape our own habits. One o the best ways to do this is to think aboutthe role our habitats - our living and working environments - play in shaping our habits.

Ocers describeda tendency or juniormembers to err on theside o not speakingwhen around moresenior ocers, eventhough this mightprevent senior ocersrom reaching eectivedecisions.



Ocers had a range o reections on how their working habitats impacted on theirhabits. There was a broad eeling that police working environments are chaotic,whether in the oce or out in the community. The chaotic physical and psychologicalenvironments that ocers typically ound themselves in were described as ollows byone participant:

This job takes us outside our comort zone on a regular basis. Oten unamiliar/bizarre/dangerous etc. habitat, which may be very dierent to what we are

brought up on.

The efect o the physical and social working environment on mood and behaviour,and the importance o being able to escape was also raised. Although not statedoutright the rst quote below strongly suggests the problem o too many peoplebeing present in an oce is not due solely to the level o noise, but that it has a socialdimension as well, and one that tends to oster conormity as group sizes increase:

The oce environment limits our behaviour. When people enter our oce, by thetime the 4th or 5th person enters it can drag our conversations down. Positive peopleare brought down. Whilst not chaotic in the same way as some o the otherhabitats described above, this is nevertheless another example o how physical

environments can take on social meanings and impact on thoughts and eelings.

Other participants elt that the inuence o habitat was not a greatly importantactor. This ocer notes that perception plays a greater role in how the work isperceived than the physical environment itsel: Its nothing to do with the habitat,just perception. One might ask, however, about the extent to which perception isshaped by ones habitat.

Participants could also see ways in which habitats matter in relation to changing thebehaviour o ofenders. They drew on ideas such as situational crime prevention andremoving opportunities in order to reduce (re)ofending. The two quotes below are

rom the same participant who had worked with drug users. He noted that theirability to move drug users was limited by actors such as unding:

The biggest successes that we have had with drug users are when weve movedthem away rom their problematic peers. It helps i we move them to the coast andaway rom inner London.

Where there are side streets and cars, people have the temptation to steal thingslike Satnavs. I you remove them rom their habitat you remove them romtemptation.

These examples demonstrate that the notion that there is a relationship between

habits and habitats captured the imagination o many o our participants. They wereable to identiy ways in which their own habitats were impacting on their actions, butalso to recognise how changing habitats could help reduce crime by encouragingpeople to change their habits. It became clear that making space or reexiveconsideration around these issues was helpul.

3.2 pRiNCiple 2 - TRusT youR guT, buT pAy ATTeNTioN

In complex situations where we have some experience but lack sucient inormation tomake a clear decision, gut eelings are oten our best guide. However, they are allible,and it is crucial to have some sense o when to ollow our gut eelings, and when to pay

close attention to ways in which a seemingly amiliar set o circumstances may besubtly diferent.

This principle resonated in many ways with our participants, and it was clear that theissue o gut eeling in policing was one that they had all considered. They described

The notion thatthere is a relationshipbetween habits andhabitats captured theimagination o manyo our participants.



making decisions based on gut eelings but also showed an awareness o the limitationso this type o decision making (and the potential serious consequences o making anincorrect decision):

Sometime Ive misjudged situations Ive thought the suspect was OK and thentook them back to the police station and they had a knie. Youre glad you didntdo a search. But they were very civil and they were doing what they were beingasked to do, very politely.

A more extreme example was presented during the second workshop. One participantdescribed a situation where he elt that ocers had dealt with what eventuallytranspired to be a domestic violence case (along with an allegation o rape)inappropriately. He described the ocers in question not taking enough action duringthe day o the incident and not appreciating that an ofence may have been committed:

I was asked to do a management review on a domestic incident. The call was to anestate with three ats on a balcony. The lady in the middle at called to say there is aman out o prison to see a girl, who lived in the at on the let, and whose mum wasliving in the at on the right. Two police ocers go to the at and see a couple engagingin a sexual act as willing partners. They cant get any answer on the door and cant go

to the inormant as she doesnt want to be seen talking to the police. Eventually the girlcomes out red aced. The guy ran out over the ence to his mums. Aterwards the policeocer said they had a gut eeling that nothing was wrong. She said no one was therewhen they asked and mentioned someone elses name when they said they saw a man inthe at. The next day, shes been head butted by him. Another team investigate and shetells them she was raped in the incident the day beore.

Did the PCs investigate thoroughly enough? My own gut eeling was that one o thepolice ocers who was new was a bit blas. The older policeman probably inuencedthe younger one. Nowadays rules or domestics are strict. We make sure we see everyperson etc. We used to say LOB which meant load o bollocks but we dont let it go

now. The young person should have challenged the older PC. Based on hindsight,they should have done more. Your gut may tell you what is right, but you need toollow everything. They trusted their gut, but they didnt pay attention.

Awareness o the need to pay attention to the act that a response is largely basedon gut eeling was expressed in this way by one participant: I do trust my gut onperceived eeling, but instead o ollowing through I do a bit more checking I alwaysthink theres always one time when a risk I take may go badly wrong.

We also discussed whether it is appropriate and even possible to train ocers in theimplementation and negotiation o gut eeling responses to policing situations.Contrasting views were expressed. Some elt training was important, while others

elt this was an area in which on the job experience was the only way o developingskill. One participant highlighted the diculties o retaining good practice that wasadvocated during training, raising the example o dealing with people who areapparently drunk and remembering to check i they are ill or injured. He cited anexample o somebody who was assumed to be drunk, but was in act in a diabeticcoma. In training, you are taught to check such things, but it was suggested that yearso experience make you less likely to check your assumptions. We learn the rightway o doing it, then we unlearn the right way o doing it.

This participant went on to describe eeling restricted and patronised by regulations:Having to undertake so much training and ollowing so much regulation shows

little trust in us. This demonstrates a certain tension between recognising theimportance o lessons learned in training and eeling that implicit competenceshould be assumed.

It was suggested thatyears o experiencemake you less likelyto check yourassumptions.We learn the rightway o doing it, thenwe unlearn the rightway o doing it.



Various strategies were described in order to appropriately balance the inuences ogut and conscious thought and there was some variety evident in the specic strategiesused. One participant described a process o recalibrating their general level osuspicion in order to make more efective decisions:

On my rst week on the street, I thought that everyone (members o public) washaving me over. Ater that I treated everyone as criminals until they were able toprove otherwise. I you do that, youre much more likely to use your gut and

intuition around people.

Clearly such gut eelings are potentially harmul to the public, but one participantalso described their eeling that checks and balances already exist in order to guardagainst over-reliance on gut: Standard Operating Procedures protect us romtrusting gut instinct e.g. the requirement to take detailed description rom awitness.... The use o the word protect is noteworthy here, and clearly there issome tension between respecting an ocers instinct, based on years o experience,and yet putting systems in place to protect the ocer rom an exclusive reliance ontheir own expertise. In a sense, the system dictates that protocol should override guteelings, and ocers are potentially constrained by this, possibly, on occasion, evenbeing pushed into putting sanctioned procedure ahead o their better judgment.

This evidence demonstrates that there is a range o difering opinion amongst policearound the issue o gut instinct and attention. While some showed an acuteawareness o the potential negative consequences o an over or under reliance on guteelings, others seemed to eel patronised by the suggestion that they need any help innegotiating these challenges. Despite this variety o perspectives, all o theparticipants appeared to enjoy and derive benet rom deliberating over the issuesraised by this principle.

3.3 pRiNCiple 3 - TAke youR Time, liTeRAlly

Within cognitive science, there is a general acceptance that there are three broadspeeds o decision making.11 There are those instinctive reactions that we call uponin physically demanding situations like sport, or when under stress. There is arational deliberative mode that takes place when we have time to work things out,and there is also a slower process o unconscious rumination that we tend to use orreally big decisions that require time or us to get a eeling or them, like whether tobuy a house, change job or get married. The principle Take your time, literally is away o highlighting that we should take decisions with the appropriate amount otime, rather than just doing everything as ast as possible.

Participants in our discussion had much to say about the issue o taking time.Opportunity or careul deliberation was generally seen as a luxury that ocers

rarely enjoyed, regardless o the area in which they worked. One participant notedthat As a response ocer you have a generally very limited time period ...youmight reect on it by yoursel at home or in the pub or whatever. Anotherconcurred: ...but generally we dont get much time to mull over things.

However contrasts were drawn between diferent decisions aced by diferent ocers:This all depends on the job and role. Even or detectives, a day is not enough tomake a decision such as taking a child away rom his/her parents, but at the sametime hours could be luxuries or PCs and PCSOs. The need to decide and actquickly and without the opportunity or consultation with superiors was alsoidentied: Despite all the rules/policy, supervision etc. the police is a bottom up

organisation. We can have huge discretions. Its our decision and the lowest ranksmake most o street decisions.

This pressure to make rapid decisions (or instance in order to comply with the Policeand Criminal Evidence Act or to meet targets) was described as having potential

The principle Takeyour time, literally isa way o highlightingthat we should takedecisions with theappropriate amounto time, and refect onthe kind o decision weare being asked to take,rather than just takingit easy, or doingeverything as astas possible.

11 o. c.



negative consequences, such as leading to a lack o clear direction and beingincredibly morale sapping or the ocers involved:

Im inclined to think our culture tends to move us more towards rushing andresolving decisions, and Ive seen at a strategic level, just We need to get there,Okay, how do we do it?, I dont care! Run! Fast! Anywhere!.

The inherently ast pace o some aspects o policing was seen as an obstacle to taking

ones time: By denition, policing does not give time or intelligent mulling.

There were occasionally some counter-examples. In the second workshop, oneparticipant described having been able to take more time to deliberate over decisionsater applying the principles and even described encouraging others at a meeting todo the same:

Team meeting with my supervisors, some decision had to be made about courseallocations or both PCs and Sgts. By getting all to take their time, mull over prosand cons, we arrived at a unanimous decision.

This constant shortage o time was evidenced throughout the diaries. Although it

seems that most participants had developed coping strategies to get them through,they were still uncomortable with this constant pressure, and sometimes voicedconcerns about it having an impact on the quality o their work:

Massively busy week - looking at the timetable to work out opportunities to prepare- and realise there is none - taking time just aint an option! I will just have to blagwhich is what I absolutely hate - its sitting very uncomortably around my values onproessionalism. 12 Its interesting to reect on what proessionalism might mean inrelation to the police orce the service places integrity at the heart o its code oproessional standards, so in this case its easy to see why the ocer might eel thathaving to blag is in conict with his proessionalism.13

In the second workshop there was some discussion o how cuts in budgets and stafmight urther exacerbate the existing pressure to make decisions in a disorganisedand short-term ashion:

This mentality results in rustration in the ranks; seen as short termism therewill be costs in ten years time. Very rustrating or all involved. This shorttermism is endemic.

It also emerged that ocers had some experience o problems arising i people tooktoo much time over decisions. For example, there was a perception that some seniorocers were very wary about making important decisions because o the potentially

serious consequences o an incorrect decision, and thereore held back or too long:

Theres lots o managers that dont want to take a decision that could blow upand, heaven orbid, lose their pension or get a complete drubbing in the press...sometimes people just dont want to decide because it could aect their career,or they make the decision because its a tick in the box.

The picture painted by our participants shows that there is tension between the needto take an appropriate amount o time (neither too little nor too much) overdecisions and barriers which prevent them rom being able to do this. It was clear thatthis issue was o considerable importance, and that ocers valued having had the

opportunity to consider and discuss it. The experience o the ocer who put thisprinciple into practice demonstrates that it is possible to use awareness o theprinciple productively.

There was a perceptionthat some senior ocerswere very wary aboutthe potentially seriousconsequences o anincorrect decision, andthereore held back ortoo long:

Theres lots omanagers that dontwant to take a decisionthat could blow up and,heaven orbid, lose theirpension or get a completedrubbing in the press...sometimes people justdont want to decide

because it could aecttheir career....

12 s pc Cma Cmm a aa abau. Aaab a:://www.cc..u//pa/abau.ax

13 s, xam, ta, C. &A e. (2007). Mistakes wereMade (But not by me): Why we Justify

Foolish Beliefs, Hurtful Decisions andBad Acts. hu Mf hacu.



3.4 pRiNCiple 4 - be iNflueNCeD by oTheRs, buT kNoW

youR oWN miND

This principle arises rom evidence that our thoughts are strongly inuenced by thethoughts o others around us. Where groups orm to discuss issues, there is a dangero groupthink, in which everybody starts to think the same way because nobody iswilling to dissent or rock the boat. In any organisation, being able to resistgroupthink and ofer divergent views can be crucial.

There was a strong consensus that questioning decisions was always important, withsome participants noting that this could be particularly vital in situations such asinvestigating serious ofences:

During murder investigations, we actively expect people to speak up. In nermoments o murder investigations you need to have some criticism.

Some participants described eeling strong or condent enough to question decisionsthat they didnt agree with:

I I dont agree with something I always say something and try and interrogate.

However, it rapidly emerged that there are barriers which afect the ability toquestion the decisions o other people. Some examples were to do with individualactors, such as the level o certainty one might have in their contrary conviction:

When youre absolutely 100% sure, its much easier or me to speak up. But iyoure only 70% sure, that little inkling o doubt creeps in and you dont want tosay anything.

Other barriers included the signicance o rank and experience, including pressurerom above:

People dismiss you purely because youre a Special (constable).

Rank denitely entitles people to more o a say.

Youve got to be able to back yoursel i you dissent rom somebody [who hasten years experience].

But we have pressure or results rom the sergeants. We may change ourdecisions or a variety o reasons to get some results, to prove ourselves, toollow procedures, to satisy the boss and to get someone in custody. This maymean taking an instant decision to get an instant judgement.

We may even be nudged by our sergeants to take a certain decision.

Variations in personality o superior ocers could also lead to barriers to speaking up:

Some inspectors are approachable, some arent. There are just dierentpersonalities.

Individual diferences in personality were raised as something that might make iteasier to challenge the views o others:

Im quite stubborn anyway, so principle 4 applies to me quite oten.

One particular diference inuencing whether decisions were challenged was

between uniormed and non-uniormed ocers:

...in uniorm its very much: Sarge, Guvnor, Sir. When youre out o uniormtheres a lot o rst names.

When youreabsolutely 100% sure,its much easier or meto speak up. But iyoure only 70% sure,that little inkling odoubt creeps in andyou dont want to sayanything.



This example corroborates our notion that habits are ormed by habitats, broadlyconceived, and that ormality is partly a unction o implicit ramings o the workingenvironment.

Following rom the above remarks, another participant noted that the more rigid,hierarchical dynamics amongst uniormed staf served a purpose, in that lowerranking uniormed ocers necessarily had less scope or inormality and questioningdecisions because they were involved in ront-line policing.

A particular example o resisting and questioning policy was discussed at the secondworkshop. One participant was vehemently opposed to having his photographdisplayed online and stated a ew reasons or this. He was interested in moving intocovert policing, and noted that his picture being displayed publicly could impact onhis saety in the area in which he lives. Beyond these practical concerns there was alsoa strong implication that he was opposed to this on principle: Very private person -not on Twitter, Facebook. He described dealing with this problem by writing tohis Chie Inspector, and by resolving to transer i he was orced to comply.

There was rustration expressed regarding situations where ocers ailed to questionthe decisions o their superiors. In some cases participants were describing the

behaviour o others, but throughout the workshops and diaries they also reected onsituations when they themselves ailed to challenge a questionable decision:

Its inuriating when people nod their heads in meetings and talks. The act thatthey dont speak up is bad.

...I ollowed oolishly all the others with instinct and my perceived belie o theirexperience just like sheep.

Our ndings suggest that the issue o knowing ones own voice and having thecondence to challenge others is a real issue which ocers requently have to

negotiate. While participants expressed a strong view that speaking up is somethingthey should do, they also provided many examples o barriers which prevent themrom being able to do so. The culture o policing, with its respect or rank and lengtho experience, combined with the pressure to achieve results quickly seem to workagainst the need to resist groupthink and inuence rom above. It may be that lowerranked police would benet not only rom understanding this principle, but alsobeing ofered practical strategies which may help them to put it into practice.

3.5 pRi NCiple 5 - DoNT leT CoNsisTeNCy geT iN The

WAy of leARNiNg

This principle is underpinned by the concept o cognitive dissonance - the discomort

caused by holding contradictory belies, or doing something that contradicts onesperception o onesel. Attempting to justiy ones actions by making them consistentwith an existing value or prior action oten leads to ignoring certain eatures o whathappened to maintain a positive image o onesel. We wanted to explore withparticipants how this might impact on police perormance.

There was some discussion as to whether a conscious or unconscious desire orconsistency afected behaviour with two opposite views being expressed:

No, consistency doesnt get in the way. You learn by experience in the policeorce. You learn what works and what doesnt. There isnt the space or this

consistency to take root. Every situation is dierent. Its all about adapting to newsituations, not being consistent.

However, this in turn may be precisely the kind o sel-justication that this principleseeks to target. For instance, one participant remarked:

Everybodys notesater an incident areword perect. Thatkind o consistencywouldnt happenanywhere else.They all heard thesame thing whichcant be true.



Everybodys notes ater an incident are word perect. That kind o consistencywouldnt happen anywhere else. They all heard the same thing which cant be true.

The benets o being consistent, in the sense o being methodical and thorough,were also highlighted:

Some consistencies are good e.g. DV [domestic violence] policy, RTC [road traccollision] breath test policy. or You make better or worse decisions based on

knowledge about what has worked in the past.

It may be that our attempt to express this principle and provoke participants views onits signicance to them was not entirely successul. However, it may also be that thisresult conrms that there is a need or this kind o work with police, in which they aregiven the opportunity to develop their sel-awareness in relation to notions such ascognitive dissonance. The comments which arose rom the discussion o this topiccertainly suggest that the notion o consistency o actions which participants latchedon to did not reect the tensions created by attempting to align values and actions.

For instance one participant remarked:

People have to reach their targets. You can call it corruption, or you can call itmaking the job work. The quality service report people will step away rom youas i you are a leper i something is wrong. People are all quite compliant, theywant to do a good job, they are gures driven.

Clearly there are tensions between competing goals that need to be unpacked. A jobthat is gures driven creates pressure to report on situations and managerelationships in a way that creates the desired gures, which does not rest easily withproessional goals to serve and protect the public and the earlier statement aboutevery situation being diferent. Indeed, it is clear rom the rest o the data that thereare many instances in which police encounter experiences that do result in cognitive

dissonance (or example, having to justiy complying with the pressure to meetnumerical arrest targets while not really wanting to make a particular arrest), butthey do not recognise these challenges as personal or psychological. A police culturethat can understand and speak about the challenge o cognitive dissonance would bemore nuanced, and this development is worth striving or.

Although our data here is relatively limited, we believe this principle is cruciallyimportant, but that its expression requires urther adaptation.

A police culture thatcan understand andspeak about thechallenge o cognitivedissonance would bemore nuanced, and thisdevelopment is worthstriving or.



4. AssessiNg The sTeeR AppRoACh

4.1 WhAT pARTiCipANTs hopeD To gAiN

We asked participants what types o sel-knowledge would help them to do their jobs better.They described a wide variety o actors including getting objective eedback, identiying gaps in

their knowledge and experience, exploring whether they saw things diferently to other people,learning how to deal with trigger points such as maintaining smooth interactions with studentprotesters, exploring whether there were areas o my mind untapped that together I couldunleash to improve my and thereore my teams perormance, accepting their own behaviour,exploring their own physical, emotional, or academic limits and understanding how theseinteract with actors such as tiredness, rustration or boredom, being sel-reective andunderstanding what makes me tick, understanding how they were inuenced by others andhow they could inuence others, the ability to think aster and react quicker in certainsituations and a desire to see every dicult job/task as a challenge rather than a chore.

This diverse list could potentially be separated into the overlapping categories o hopesor personal sel-improvement and hopes or improved proessional perormance as parto programmes o proessional development. It suggests that police see many potentialbenets rom and have an appetite or opportunities to enhance sel-knowledge.

4.2 suCCessfully implemeNTiNg The pRiNCiples

The research diaries and the notes rom the second workshop provide an indicationo how useul participants ound the principles in practice. In his early diary entries,one participant appeared very positive about the utility o the principles. However,by the time o his ourth entry, when prompted as to what he had learned he stated:

[The principles] enabled me to plan the meeting. However, I am not sure whether

I would have done it any dierently. I am beginning to think that I already apply the5 principles subconsciously in much o what I do.

In the next entry he repeats the suggestion that the principles have not had a great efect onhis behaviour, but considers that they might have helped him to become more reective:

Im not sure whether I would have acted any dierently without RSA but this hasallowed me to examine my thought processes.

He does however describe situations where he was able to get others to apply [theprinciples] as well as yoursel.

This was corroborated by comments rom the second workshop, although thecontext was shited outside o policing:

Its quite dicult to change policing is in a set habitat. Away rom policing, Itook it (the principles) to my non-job mates. I made an eort to go to real people.

When describing what she had learned rom applying the principle in the context oactivities specic to police work, one participant also seemed to highlight subtle butimportant shits in her own thinking rather than radical changes in behaviour:

To accept dierence and that one style which suits one person does not suit all;

not to take things personally, to have more condence and trust in my ownjudgements; not to be reliant on others or validation.

Another participant described the principles possibly having a very direct efect onbehaviour in the context o ront line policing. Here he described making a decision

I work in anenvironment that isintellectually understimulating and quiteormulaic. (There was a)good spread o peopleat the event - rare to getperspectives romrelatively junior sta.



using gut to stop suspects who turned out to be known robbers suspected ocommitting new ofences, inormed with newound sel-awareness:

I learned there is denitely an advantage to understanding how decisions arearrived at. I wondered aterwards i I would have stopped the two males withoutthinking about Steer and concluded it was probably 50/50 depending on numerousactors. Sometimes I would have stopped them without really understanding how Ihad reached the decision and at other times I would have ound a reason not to,however by consciously thinking o the reasoning behind the decision I eel there is

some potential or better and more consistent decision making.

4.3 bARRieRs To implemeNTiNg The pRiNCiples

A phone conversation conducted with one participant revealed some potential barriersto implementation. Over the course o this discussion he noted that whilst the workshopwas interesting it was a very diferent environment rom that o his everyday work, andone in which those rom diferent ranks and departments had the rare and unamiliaropportunity o interacting as equals:

I work in an environment that is intellectually under stimulating and quiteormulaic. (There was a) good spread o people at the event - rare to get

perspectives rom relatively junior sta, Workshop - people wanted to be there- everybody was in a more intellectual environment people have more to say,but time constraints everybody not trying to dominate people could/wouldhave said more but wanted to be polite Also a matter o habitat

The implication is that the principles were easy to understand and to apply in theory whilstin the sae environment o the workshop, but that the more challenging environments opolice work made this much harder because o relatively hierarchical and ormalized socialrelations. As well as these structural limitations discussed above and extensively elsewhere, aew participants also raised the issue o the principles being new and unamiliar:

I think I learned that knowing the principles is not enough as its a case o trying to change

thirty two years o learned and inherited behaviour and thought processes. I the processesare to be useul it seems important to internalise them and make them an automaticramework o thinking, though Im not sure how easy or quick this would be.

This point serves to highlight that not all participants ully understood that our desire was not to createa new improved automaticity but to increase sel-awareness and space or inormed relection, and alsosuggests that more work is needed to clariy our objectives rom the outset o the research.

4.4 iNTeNTioNs To use The pRiNCiples iN The fuTuRe

Our objective was not to draw strong conclusions about the direct application o theseparticular principles, but rather to establish whether this kind o approach with these

kinds o principles have the potential to be valuable to police work. Nonetheless, the ewparticipants who attended the second workshop were very positive about their intentionsto go on using the principles they learned. We should note that they are not necessarilyrepresentative o the initial group (that is, the most motivated and interested may havebeen the least likely to drop out). Still, there was a clear view amongst participants thatthe principles have some ongoing worth or those in the police service:

It takes conscious thought to introduce these principles into decision making but is Ibelieve worthwhile. Reactive consideration o the principles ater the event helps thedebrieng process and with time I think it would begin to infuence patterns o behaviour.

Another participant described her intention to incorporate the principles into hermanagement o other staf, having been convinced o their power to improve decisionmaking:

I will use the principles in 1-1 discussion to help [my team] improve their owndecision making, as a domino eect will cascade the learning.

The implication isthat the principles wereeasy to understandand to apply in theorywhilst in the saeenvironment o theworkshop, but thatthe more challengingenvironments o policework made this muchharder because orelatively hierarchicaland ormalized socialrelations.



NeW leADeRship

There are critical problems acing the police as publicity surrounds the appointmento the third new commissioner o the Metropolitan police in three years. Bernard

Hogan-Howes to do list includes dealing with atermath o the riots, keeping ahandle on the continuing terrorist threat, planning or the Olympic Games, restoringpublic trust, all while making cuts o 543m by 2015. In light o these challenges,what do the ndings o our modest research ofer?

Hogan-Howe has set out his stall or no-nonsense, bold policing which is aboutcrime-ghting above all else, and does away with unnecessary partnership working.The tone o his total policing agenda might appear to be somewhat at odds withour suggestion that police need to be encouraged to take the time to consider theimpact o their habits, attention and decisions. Hogan-Howe says, I am trying toget the police to concentrate on our strengths. We are good problem solvers: we go in,sort a problem out quickly and move on.14

Our research process suggests that such quick wins are only part o the story, andthat some police ocers eel that several actors inhibit the organisational learningnecessary or dealing with more complex cases. Moreover, in order or this kind oslick problem solving to ollow, our research suggests it would be helpul or police tohave a good understanding o the ways in which their minds work, and how theyimpact on what they do. The quality o their interactions with each other, with thepublic, criminals, victims o crime, and other services all depend on being able to beaware o and properly manage, or instance their susceptibility to groupthink orcognitive dissonance. Moreover, our ndings indicate that making space or theexploration o Steer principles is an opportunity that police ocers greatly value,

and there is potential or it to deliver both individual and organisational benet.

poliCe CulTuRe: solDieRs oR soCiAl WoRkeRs?

Like all public services, the police service has experienced years o target culture,obliging police to ace inwards and upwards, reporting to management inquantitative terms, rather than outwards to communities seeking quality. The needto ollow process, hierarchical management, and a risk-averse organisational culturehas urther militated against prioritising the quality o interactions both within thepolice orce and between the public and the police.

At the same time, there is a growing recognition that many orms o policing,especially community policing, depend crucially upon precisely these aspects ointernal and external communication, especially at a time when police budgets arebeing cut and the public are called upon to ll gaps in provision. Criminologist RogerGrae argues that Communities deliver community saety, not police, whileProessor Betsy Stanko, Head o Research, Strategy and Analysis at the MetropolitanPolice Service remarked that Fear rules the streets in places where the communitiesare not involved.15

Varied pressures on police oten requires them to shit between roles, adapting theirbehaviour accordingly, and dealing with dicult choices quickly, always under thepressure to get it right. For example, in a public disorder situation, ocers have to

enact the militaristic unction, using necessary and proportionate orce and rapidlycoming under critical re i they go too ar or not ar enough. The same ocers maylater nd themselves delivering devastating news to a bereaved amily, or providingrst line support to a victim o rape. In this context, it seems desirable to encourage

5. DisCussioN, impliCATioNs

AND ReCommeNDATioNs

Like all public services,the police service hasexperienced yearso target culture,obliging police toace inwards andupwards, reportingto management inquantitative terms,rather than outwardsto communitiesseeking quality.

14 ha, r. (15 smb2011). Tough Talk and Family Values:Bernard Howgan-Howe lays downthe law. t i, [o],Aaab: ://www..

c.u/w/u/m-w/u-a-a-am-au-ba-aw-a-w--aw-2355541.m

15 B a t 2020/rsA pubcs summ, [o], Aaab:://www.a.//a-cc/2020a-ubc-c-umm/aa#4



the types o insight that arise rom reecting on operational and personal challengesthat relate to the cognitive underpinnings o behaviour, because this may help policeto establish a more sophisticated understanding o the contextual sensitivity o theirrelationship to the public.

We are not the rst to point out that the implicit raming o what kind o public servicethe police orce is - e.g. community enablers or militaristic deenders o public order -has a bearing on how the public and police think o and relate to each other, and both

perspectives reect important aspects o what it means to be a police ocer. However,our work suggests that police themselves are rarely given the chance to reect on thekinds o tensions and dilemmas that stem rom this dual aspect to their role.

In this respect, our small study served to highlight this hugely signicant issue in anew way. By reecting on their decisions, habits and attention, the police themselvesseemed to be bringing these two core models o policing to the surace. Whendiscussing the inuence o organisational culture, accountability and hierarchy, thepolice highlighted the militaristic metaphor: closed, bureaucratic, controlling andnecessarily engendering ear in the public. On the other hand, when thinking aboutpatterns o attention, communication, and gut eelings, the metaphor was more likea orm o social work: open, personal, trust-based, and enjoying working with the

public rather than against them.

The inter- and intrapersonal skills that are required to navigate between these diverseresponsibilities are maniold and it is clear that urther investment in supporting thedevelopment o such skills is important. This research indicates that the Steer approachto understanding our own behaviour may be a promising part o this endeavour.

ReseARCh

Our study was exploratory, and part o a wider investigation into our engagedapproach to behaviour change. The research revealed that the Steer approach haspotential value to the police service, that the introduction o the principles could beeasible and acceptable in the context o police culture, and that the generalapproach is worth urther investigation.

More research is now needed in order to urther develop this approach. In order tond out more about the barriers and acilitators to using the principles, it would bevaluable to interview more police ocers individually. Conducting one to oneinterviews would allow participants the reedom to disclose issues that they may noteel able to in a group environment o mixed rank ocers. It would also be benecialto repeat the process in a way that was targeted to particular sections o the police,taking into account the specic challenges they ace.

There may also be scope or a more ambitious programme o experimental researchwhich would aim to demonstrate the impact o discussing these principles onparticipants thinking and behaviour. This more extended piece o research wouldaim to engender a deeper sense o commitment to the process and ollowparticipants up over a longer period. The development o tailored mechanisms tocapture the relationship between Steer-like interventions and enduring changes inthinking, attitudes and behaviour is one major research challenge, and determiningthe impact o those changes on outcomes o police work would be another. Anexperimental trial o this nature is an important next stage in the development o anevidence base or the impact o being engaged in the Steer process.

TRAiNiNg

While urther research is needed to urther develop and rene our approach, we seepotential to develop a training package that could be delivered by the Police Serviceinternally. This training package could either be integrated into basic training or as

We are not the rstto point out that theimplicit raming owhat kind o publicservice the police orceis - e.g. communityenablers or militaristicdeenders o publicorder - has a bearingon how the public andpolice think o andrelate to each other,and both perspectivesrefect importantaspects o what itmeans to be a policeocer. However, ourwork suggests that

police themselves arerarely given the chanceto refect on the kindso tensions anddilemmas that stemrom this dual aspectto their role.



an additional course or those who have been in service or some time. The positivecase or this kind o training should emphasise the types o things that the currentparticipants expressed a desire or. These were personal sel-development, improvingproessional perormance and taking more control over ones thinking andbehaviour.

pRACTiCe

Given limitations on staf, time and budgets any changes to working practices wouldhave to be relatively subtle i they are to be realistically implemented. There isevidence in our data that the principles are useul or some o the current participantsin some situations, but that their successul implementation might have beenhampered by structural actors. For instance there is limited time to reect and applythe principles due to external pressures such as complying with the decisions osuperior ocers, or working within the parameters and timescales dictated bylegislation, as well as local and orce-wide targets.

It is suggested that the successul application o the learning could be promoted byrecommending a series o small changes such as encouraging ocers to take a shorttime (around 20 minutes) every week to explicitly reect on their decisions, habits

and attention, and perhaps begin promoting the value o this to senior ocers so thatthis would not have to be done on their own time. Whilst this process could beundertaken individually or in consultation with peers and line mangers it would beimportant not to make the ormat o this exercise overly structured. It is clear thatthere is huge diversity in the challenges and issues aced even by those in the relativelysmall current sample. As such, methods o coping and reection (and o applying theprinciples) are likely to be just as idiosyncratic.

TRANsfoRmiNg behAviouR ChANge

Our research with members o the Police Service supports our broader view thatbehaviour change strategies need to take account o organisational culture andcontext. Many behaviour change initiatives rely on nudging techniques, which workon individuals automatic behaviour. In contrast, the Steer approach works withgroups, and does so reexively, which makes changing behaviour a shared processthrough which we collectively reect on our shared inuences and our individualinuence, and recognise that we cannot really change ourselves without changingeach other. However, this process benets greatly rom a shared recognition anddiscussion o the distinct eatures o any given organisational culture, which was anintegral part o this piece o research.

We set out to explore whether and how the RSAs Steer principles might help policedo their work better. Both stages o our research indicated that introducing the

opportunity to consider the principles was benecial. Although the sample wassmall, and the responses were selective, the eedback was suciently positive andinstructive to consider the process a success. As a result o taking part in the research,some police reported heightened sel-awareness, and some made positive changes asa result. These changes ranged rom the personal, including smoking less and eatingmore healthily, to signicant shits in proessional settings, including encouragingcolleagues to reect, pay attention and take more time over dicult decisions. Theimpact o implementing these changes at a personal level is hard to maintain, andhard to track. Still, this kind o engaged reexive process does seem to have thepotential to improve communication, increase eciency, and change the course ospecic cases police are working on or the better. This in turn may mean more

crimes solved, injustices prevented and lives saved.

When discussingthe infuence oorganisational culture,accountability andhierarchy, the policehighlighted themilitaristic metaphor:closed, bureaucratic,controlling andnecessarily engenderingear in the public. Onthe other hand, whenthinking about patternso attention,communication, andgut eelings, the metaphorwas more like a ormo social work: open,

personal, trust-based,and enjoying workingwith the public ratherthan against them.


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ACkNoWleDgmeNTs

We would like to thank the Department o Communities and Local Governmentor their Empowerment Fund, and RSA Fellows and Trustees or their continuedsupport. I am particularly grateul to the RSA Fellows with experience in the policeservice who helped with the preparatory research. The Metropolitan Police Research

Unit were instrumental in advertising or participants and we would like to thankthose who took part in the workshops and the research process as a whole. Forhelping with previous drats we are grateul to Matthew Taylor, Steve Broome,Adam Lent and Jeremy Crump. Thanks also to Gaia Marcus, Janet Hawken andBenedict Dellot or assistance with data collection and Mansoor Mir or dataanalysis. A special thank you to Proessor Betsy Stanko FRSA or helping to recruitparticipants and or writing the oreword.

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Reflexive Coppers: Adaptive Challenges in Policing

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