Police practitioners and place managers’ understandings and perceptions of heritage crime in Nottinghamshire
| Author | Bethan Poyser,Sam Poyser |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461355717730837 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Police practitioners and place managers’
understandings and perceptions of
heritage crime in Nottinghamshire
Bethan Poyser
Nottingham Trent University, UK
Sam Poyser
York St John University, UK
Abstract
‘So you know, as daftas it sounds, if you’ve got a building, that reallyisn’t a priority, is it?’ Despitethe wealth of heritage sites
in the UK, the topicis a marginalised area of criminological study here. It has been arguedthat there is discordance between
the concepts of ‘heritage’ and ‘crime’. One is holistic; the other set in the law. Through a programme of semi-structured
interviews with‘heritage place managers’and questionnaires deliveredto neighbourhood policing teams in Nottinghamshire
Police, this research aimed to examine this clash. In particular, it aimed to compare and contrast heritage place managers’
understandings and experiences of heritage crime with those of police practitioners. It was found that the two groups
differed markedly in this respect, creating feelings of frustration and stagnation for both. Such findings are of particular
concern in the lightof statistics which demonstratethat heritage crime is occurring frequently across theUK, and evidence
that offenders are targeting new heritage assets and sites in response to changing legislation. Budget cuts, which continue to
impact upon policing priorities inNottinghamshire, further compound the problem.The conclusion of this articledetails the
potential impacts of these findings and suggests changes relating to both the heritage and policing sectors.
Keywords
Heritage crime, police perception, heritage protection, cultural value, heritage practitioners
Submitted 25 Jul 2017, accepted 20 Aug 2017
Introduction
The understandable dominance of high-priority crime, such
as street crime for example, arguably means that already
marginalised areas of crime are sometimes misunderstood
and possibly neglected by police practitioners. This can
lead to feelings of frustration from victims of marginalised
crimes and police practitioners themselves (Mawby, 2016).
Similar frustrations have been note d in relation to areas
such as rural and wildlife crime (Nurse, 2013; Poyser and
Poyser, 2016). Limited research thus far has observed that
police practitioners have neglected heritage crime for
decades (Kila and Bellcells, 2015). One of the primary
reasons for the limited awar eness of heritage crime and
other marginalised crimes, is the notion that they are ‘vic-
timless’(Grove,2014).This is despite the fact that, as
research demonstrates, heritage crime has secondary
human victims such as ‘heritage place managers’ (individ-
uals employed to look after a heritage site; such as a castle
warden), from herein referred to as HP Ms, and the sur-
rounding community (Oxford Archaeology, 2009).
Heritage crime is a difficult form of crime to police and
prevent. Indeed, traditional methods of policing and crime
prevention are ordinarily made re dundant in the face of
heritage assets and sites (Grove, 2013). Moreover, although
much heritage crime occurs out of ignorance, there is little
Corresponding author:
Sam Poyser, York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York YO31
7EX, UK.
Email: sam.poyser@gmail.com
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2017, Vol. 19(4) 247–260
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1461355717730837
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