Police interaction and Notting Hill Carnival

ABSTRACT

Discussions on public order policing often centre on the role of paramilitary policing tactics, only recently has the role of dialogue become more prominent within the field. This paper focuses on the latter, examining the interaction processes of Police Liaison Teams (PLTs) negotiating with revellers at Notting Hill Carnival. The PLTs are a newer tactical option within public order policing, they seek to act as a communicative bridge between different groups and the police. The PLTs were deployed at Notting Hill Carnival for the first time in 2016 charged with facilitating communication between the police and the Carnival floats – a performative feature of the event. Notting Hill Carnival attracts dense national and international crowds to the small urban location of Notting Hill in West London. Attended by approximately two million people every year it is the largest and most sensitive annual policing operation for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). The paper utilises data collected during fieldwork at Notting Hill Carnival over three consecutive years: 2015, 2016 and 2017. The paper draws from wider ethnographic research conducted between 2015 and 2017 with the public order unit at the MPS. Utilising the works of Goffman, this paper seeks to evidence how officers at Notting Hill Carnival operate within the confines of a professionally stigmatised identity. As such, the communicative foundations inherited by the PLTs are weak and unpredictable. Despite this, the paper also explores how PLT-reveller team-work is widely experienced, with both collaborating to ensure a positive Carnival experience.

KEYWORDS:

• Notting Hill Carnival
• Goffman
• Police Liaison Teams
• police-stigma

Acknowledgements

I would firstly like to thank my supervisor’s Dr Conor O’Reilly and Dr Anna Barker for all their help and guidance with this article and wider thesis writing. I would also like to thank both reviewers who took the time and effort to read my article and provide valuable feedback. In addition to this I would like to thank Dr Sarah Charman who very kindly read an early draft of this article and provided really helpful feedback. A massive thank you to Dr Mark Kilgallon for reading everything I write. Thanks also to Ben Linton for all his continued support. Lastly, I would like to say a very sincere thank you to all the police officers who give their valuable time to help with my research – it is genuinely very greatly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Meaning dawn or day-break, often celebrated at Caribbean festivals and marks the official beginning of Carnival.

2 In 2015: 12,583; 2016: 12,025; and, 2017: 12,573. Information received through personal correspondence. The total for each year is the total deployed over the bank holiday, this total number would never be deployed at the one time.

3 Police officers are categorised by their levels of training. Level three training is the base standard for all police officers. Level two training is a higher standard of training, enabling the officer to be involved in response to public disorder – officers must complete refresher training once a year. Level one training is the highest available public order training – all TSG within the MPS are level one trained. Nationally, most level one capability has been lost due to austerity.

4 The act of inserting drugs into a condom and inserting the condom up their rectum - a widely used method by drug dealers to conceal their supply.

5 Grenfell tower was a block of social housing located within Notting Hill. The horrific Grenfell fire saw the death of many who became trapped in the burning building. Debates since the disaster identified the perceptions of some that ethnic minorities (especially working-class minorities) are not protected by state bodies (such as councils) in the same way that affluent whites are. As a well-known representative of the State, the police became increasingly nervous about how these perceptions would impact them. During Carnival 2017 there was a Carnival wide silence for the victims of Grenfell.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. No financial interests or benefits have arisen from this research.