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ABSTRACT
One of the many forms that modern policing takes is ‘integrated offender management’ (IOM). This involves the police working alongside staff from other agencies, including probation and prison officers and drugs workers, all in a bid to reduce offending by prolific offenders. Some of this work involves traditional policing methods of surveillance, catch and convict (the stick). The novelty for the police lies in the emphasis on drawing offenders away from crime through ‘pathway support’ such as helping them into employment and supporting them into stable housing arrangements (the carrot). In theory this changes the nature of the policing task considerably. Given the emphasis in the existing literature on how ‘cop culture’ derives from the nature of the job police officers perform, this raises interesting questions as to whether IOM officers exhibit different cultural traits from their mainstream colleagues. In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork, I examine whether the operation of IOM, as expressed through officers’ talk and action, lives up to its rhetoric of a radical new approach to policing.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Richard Young, John Baldwin, Stewart Field and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Localised policing of prolific offending (see, for example, Ministry of Justice, Citation2010 and Criminal Justice Joint Inspection, Citation2014).
2 This work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council (EF/H011382/1).
3 Interviewees included nine field intelligence officers, two patrol officers, one police inspector, one field intelligence officer supervisor of the rank of sergeant, six probation officers, two probation managers, two criminal justice intervention workers and one criminal justice intervention team manager. Other available senior representatives from the major stakeholders in the scheme were also interviewed. These interviewees included one Assistant Chief Constable, one Probation Chief Executive Officer and one Senior Prison Officer. Twenty offenders (ten in custody and ten undergoing community supervision) were also interviewed. Police, probation and prison records were used to gather the names of current IOM offenders; names of individuals were then selected completely at random from the list. Most offenders were introduced to me either by probation staff, prison officers or the police themselves; some were selected through snowball sampling (Davis, Citation2000). In the case of community-based offenders, my belief was that police interview rooms or probation office consultation suites were unlikely to create the environment required to capture free and frank offender perceptions of the scheme. I decided, therefore, that in order to overcome the problem of neutrality, it was necessary, as far as possible, to meet offenders on their own turf. Some offenders, for example, were approached after routine IOM appointments and subsequently taken to a coffee shop, to conduct the interview away from the formal trappings of the probation office or police station.
4 Police operated premises.
5 For a more detailed personal/autobiographical account of my fieldwork and the various challenges I encountered, see Cram (Citation2016)
6 Under the ‘transforming rehabilitation’ strategy (Ministry of Justice, Citation2013), Probation Trusts were dissolved and replaced (from February 2015) by a National Probation Service. Following this reorganisation, probation trusts became responsible for high risk offenders, whilst the majority of offenders on community sentences or release from prison (including IOM participants) became the responsibility of ‘community rehabilitation companies’. Fieldwork for this study was conducted between 2012 and 2013, prior to the implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation strategy. Thus, the impact of the ensuing ‘split’ in probation services (and it is recognised has likely had a substantial operational impact on IOM) was not the focus of the research.
7 Prolific, acquisitive criminals formed the focus of the IOM unit examined in the present study. Nonetheless, the IOM approach now covers a much wider range of offenders, including: Violent Offenders, Priority Youth Offending Team cases, High Risk Serious Harm Offenders, High Risk Domestic Violence Offenders and 18-24s’ Gangs and Serious Youth Violence (Home Office, Citation2015).
8 There was little evidence, however, to suggest that being a part of IOM afforded offenders improved access to services, otherwise available to non-IOM participants.
9 While there is some evidence of shifts in police culture, as more graduates, women and ethnic minorities enter the force, the main themes continue to be identified in empirical work (see for example, Loftus, Citation2010).
10 ‘Having a word’ with an IOM offender typically means conducting a ‘low-level’ stop, which may or may not lead to a search and/or arrest of an offender. Police officers retain the power to stop people for a variety of reasons, ostensibly based on ‘reasonable suspicion’, by virtue of s.1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), s.23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and can also stop vehicles under s.163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (s.163 does not require reasonable suspicion). The powers are further glossed by the PACE Code of Practice A (most recently revised in 2015) which provides practical guidance for police officers exercising stop and search powers.
11 Referred to by some field intelligence officers as the ‘gold’ or ‘premium’ service.
12 See also note 6, above.
13 Examples included: mediation, counselling, social work, child protection, running youth clubs and prior postings in family support units (Field, Citation2007: 318).