Precautionary policing and dispositives of risk in a police force control room in domestic abuse incidents: an ethnography of call handlers, dispatchers and response officers

ABSTRACT

This article explores the riskwork engaged in by call handlers, dispatchers and response officers in a police force control room in England. We present a novel approach by drawing on the work of Foucault and his concept le dispositif to study riskwork in policing in a post-austerity landscape and to develop the analytical concept of ‘precautionary policing’. Dispositional analysis allows us to focus on social dispositions or inclinations and to demonstrate how these arrangements affect social interaction and organisational behaviour. We draw on data collected via ethnographic fieldwork focusing on domestic abuse incidents in a police force control room in England. The findings focus on: (1) organisational technologies of risk, which guided and surfaced staff actions and decision-making; (2) riskwork to mitigate and manage threats and harm to victims and the public; and (3) riskwork relating to the professional decision-making of individual staff and officers. In addition to bringing the risk tools and artefacts ‘into being’ through their (inter-)actions, for staff, these technologies are a safety net to justify practices. They erode opportunities for officer discretion, particularly in relation to responses to domestic incidents. Therefore, despite policy discussions of the need to reduce officers’ risk aversion and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy, a risk averse culture still pervades. Uncertainty becomes a justification for pre-emptive action by officers and staff before risks become known, and demonstrates a shift to precautionary policing practices which do not follow the blueprints of risk management.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestic abuse
• precautionary policing
• risk
• victims

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Karen Lumsden http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0546-8775

Notes

1 A young child who was killed by her guardians. This incident led to major reform in child protective services.

2 The murder of two school girls by a school staff member which led to the introduction of detailed criminal records checks for all persons working with children.

3 999 is the telephone number for contacting the emergency services (police, fire service and ambulance) in England. The non-emergency telephone number for the police is 101.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by College of Policing / HEFCE Policing Knowledge Fund [Grant Number J04].