Research Proposal
Under Construction
INTRODUCTION Back to research
I am currently the Beat Manager for Shipley town centre, Beat 12 of twenty into which the Eccleshill and Shipley Division is divided (see Mahoney and Ward, 1999, on the role of Beat Manager). The Division provides policing services to some 100,000 people, 40,000 of whom live within the ten beats covered by Shipley Police Station, from where I work. I am one of fourteen constables, who are divided equally between Shipley and Eccleshill police stations, working in the Eccleshill and Shipley Community Action Team (CAT). The Division has for the past two years been at the forefront of the development of Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) (Goldstein, 1979; Goldstein 1990) within the West Yorkshire Police.
The focal point of my Beat is a pedestrianised shopping precinct centred on the Market Square (see map at Appendix 1). The geography is such that it is impossible to patrol effectively unless one is on foot.
The impetus for this study stems from professional concerns arising from my role as a Beat Manager, with responsibility for an area with a mixed urban demographic, but which has a preponderance of retail outlets in a traditional shopping centre setting. In my role of practitioner researcher (McNiff et al., 1996: 7), I am concerned to incorporate MA learning within my professional practice, and ensure wherever possible that each informs and enhances the other.
RATIONALE
Foot patrol and Community Policing, for all the popular imagery and political rhetoric are not synonymous (Cordner, 1994). A number of studies have been carried out in the United States focusing on the effects of foot patrol programmes. These indicate that foot patrol can have a positive impact on: citizen perceptions of policing (Trojanowicz and Banas, 1985); citizen satisfaction (Police Foundation, 1981); order maintenance (Bowers and Hirsch, 1987); fear of crime (Greene and Taylor, 1988; Trojanowicz, 1982) and citizen support for the police (Esbensen, 1987). There appears to be an academic consensus that foot patrol does not overtly impact upon crime rates (Wilson and Kelling, 1982), however there is little consistency in the results of the numerous studies conducted and it would be premature to conclude that foot patrol does not work (Cordner and Jones, 1995; Greene and Taylor, 1988).
When I use the term foot patrol I seek to highlight patrol conducted on foot around a geographically defined area, within an overarching POP framework of partnership and collaboration.
Greene and Taylor (1988: 217) point to a number of shortcomings in what are exclusively empirical studies of foot patrol in the U.S. A 'major deficiency' highlighted is what they term an 'inadequate operationalization of community' - in none of the eight studies they focus on was there any attempt to use 'ecologically valid neighborhood (sic) units'. They found that the areas used would often crosscut neighbourhood and community boundaries, thus increasing the likelihood of random homogeneity amongst respondents. Future studies, they argue, should adopt a more critical sensitivity to issues of community dynamics and structures.
Community Policing is a contested, value-laden concept (Greene, 1998). It is an 'elastic' (Weatheritt, 1987) or 'plastic' (Eck and Rosenbaum, 1994) term, with many different shades of meaning and containing theoretical, philosophical and programmatic elements (Bayley, 1988; Bayley, 1994; Trojanowicz et al., 1998). 'Staunch critics' emphasise community policing whilst 'unwavering advocates', and there are many, stress community policing (Rosenbaum, 1994: xi). Such dichotomous thinking, between 'soft' and 'hard' policing typifies many debates in the social sciences.
Implicit within this definitional and cognitive problematic is the meaning assigned to the term community, packed as it is with sociological and 'common sense' meanings (Crow and Allan, 1994). Wilmott (1986) proposes a threefold typology of:
· Interest Community - often geographically dispersed
· Place Community - often understood geographically, through, for example shared residence
· Community of Attachment - a 'spirit of community', manifested through collective action.
Yet little attention is given to the definition of 'community' in community policing (Buerger, 1994). Community participation in policing is conceptualised as limited to four primary roles: as the 'eyes and ears' of the police; as 'cheerleading'; as a source of monetary assistance and as what Buerger terms 'statement making', acts of symbolic confrontation carried out either independently or in concert with the police. To this list is added a fifth potential role, that of the actual confrontation of crime/disorder, such as might be found in this country with the Special Constabulary (Buerger, 1994: 270). Community policing, he concludes, remains a unilateral action on the part of the police, assuming homogeneity and ignoring wider issues of identity and role.
A role is the behaviour expected of a person occupying a given status or social position and the rights associated with it. Thus&ldots;shop assistants [play a role] in relation to selling goods.
(O'Donnel, 1997:4)
We all play a number of different social roles, according to the varying contexts of our activities. The most important role for many of us is that of wage or salary earner (Runciman, 1998), and the roles we play are an important referent of our identity. Billington et al (1998: 50), however, contend that "roles&ldots;connected with a job [may be seen] just as a source of income perhaps", capable of being turned on or off almost at will, and therefore not nearly as important as other more 'permanent' familial or gender roles for example. Since roles are, in essence, socially defined expectations that an individual, in a given social position follows we should however, in theory at least be able to generalise across occupational types (Giddens, 1997: 79). (704 words)
AIMS
This study represents an attempt to consider the relationship between perceptions of policing and social role. In particular I wish to concentrate on the perceptions of retailers in the Shipley Market Square precinct, and establish whether these perceptions differ from their perceptions as residents. Also included is a large supermarket, part of a multi-national chain, (shown at Appendix Two), a two minute walk from the Market Square.
The study will allow me to explore issues relating to community, most importantly whether the study area is perceived as comprising 'a community', and to consider the theory that foot patrol has little impact on reported crime rates, but that it can have a positive impact on people's fear of crime/disorder.
The variety of retail outlets studied will allow for comparison between salaried managers, shop owners, and shop assistants. In addition, issues of gender, age and ethnicity can also be explored.
If Billington et al (1988) are correct, there should prove to be little significant difference between retailer/citizen perceptions. However, I would expect that specific fears will differ according to the 'hat' that the respondent is wearing - shop theft, or 'shoplifting' is not commonly cited as a community concern in published surveys (West Yorkshire Police Annual Report 1999/2000). I hypothesise therefore that social role is a significant factor in forming attitudes towards and perceptions of policing, specifically foot patrol in a 'community policing' setting.
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Eschewing the empirical approach criticised by Greene and Taylor (1988) I adopt here a more qualitative, inductive approach. I hope not only to test established theories, pertaining to foot patrol and social role, but also to generate new insights into the relationship between the two. As such, then, the approach adopted is an inductive-deductive one, and one designed in order to tease out in more detail than the traditional studies have allowed questions of identity and of interest, of community as shared meaning and physical space. The work is situated therefore in a Symbolic Interactionist framework, necessary if these shared meanings and understandings are to be unpacked (Silverman, 1993).
Uppermost is the need to say 'a lot about a little', as opposed to a 'little about a lot' (Silverman, 1993: 3), particularly given time and resource constraints. I endeavour therefore to do the best I can "in the available time" (Bell, 1999: 103, emphasis in original). For this reason I began assembling the pieces of my jigsaw since I became Beat Manager for Shipley Town Centre in November 1999.
At the November Shipley Neighbourhood Forum I experimented with self-completion questionnaires, learning many valuable lessons in research design. Specific problems encountered included a 10% return rate, and spoiled returns.
Rough and ready pilots of my final interview design have been tried out on colleagues and friends, providing much constructive feedback, since interviews are time-consuming and by necessity subjective. One must, therefore, guard against bias and devise effective wordings, a task which is as demanding for interviews as it is for questionnaires. Offsetting this, and the reason I have chosen this design, is the richness of material that can be gathered (Bell, 1999).
Utilising semi-structured or 'free range' interviews will allow for some fluidity and flexibility, through the use of more open-ended questioning, as contrasted with the more closed, mechanistic approach of traditional police questionnaires (Robson, 1993: 227). This approach will I hope lend itself well to achieving the aims and objectives of the study, given my limited resources and the fact that I am a lone, practitioner researcher concerned with a situation in which I am already an actor (Robson, 1993: 228).
Such interviews will allow for easier comparative analysis than their unstructured, informal cousin (May, 1998). The data obtained will be supplemented by auto/biographical material, to contextualise the issues, grounding them in my own professional experience and addressing my own professional concerns (McNiff et al., 1996). As a piece of Action Research I have been conscious of ethical concerns and have sought to address these through the securing of access, approval and authority (Robson, 1993).
Analytical issues are, however, far from unproblematic (Bell, 1999), and the need remains to make some analytical sense of any raw data obtained through coding techniques (May, 1998), whilst remaining aware of the potential for 'data overload' (Robson, 1993). The process required is one of 'data reduction', in order that theoretical perspectives will emerge, whilst the conceptual framework outlined will enable me to flesh out events, settings and processes (Rudestam and Newton, 1992).
Generalizability, the extent to which any findings might be more generally applicable is enhanced by the bounded community of interests chosen, and the proliferation of High Street names with their relative homogeneity of culture (Ritzer, 1996).
Remember that we are adopting a Symbolic Interactionist stance, requiring an understanding of how people make sense of their social worlds. "The analysis of interviews", writes May (1998: 127) provides an opportunity to do this since it allows us to focus "not only on motivations and reasons, but also social identities and how these are constructed within the social settings in which people live and work". This has been lacking from much 'traditional' police research, both in-house attitude surveying and the 'classic' foot patrol studies of the early 1980s conducted in Flint, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey (Trojanowicz, 1982; Police Foundation, 1981).
Access to police time and resources has been secured through prior agreement with the Divisional Management Team and line management. Access to respondents has been obtained through the good auspices of the Town Centre Manager and the Chair of the Chamber of Trade.
Reported crime statistics, for the six-month period beginning with my appointment as Beat Manager for Shipley will be obtained from the police Criminal Information System (C.I.S.) computer. These will show corresponding figures for the preceding years, beginning with the November 1996 to April 1997 period.