REVIEWS
| Date | 01 July 1982 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1982.tb02490.x |
| Published date | 01 July 1982 |
REVIEWS
FAIR COPS?
THE
MANNERS
AND
CUSTOMS
OF
THE
POLICE. By DONALD BLACK.
[New York and London: Academic Press. 1981.
274
pp.
Hardback
:
E19.60; paperback:
€6.40.1
MODERN POLICING. Edited by DAVID WAITS POPE
AND
NORMAN
L.
WEINER. [London: Croom Helm. 1981. 271 pp. Paperback:
E8.95.1
ORGANISATIONAL ASPECTS
or
POLICE BEHAVIOUR. By
J.
MERVYN
JONES.
[Aldershot
:
Gower. 1980. 182 pp. Paperback
:
E12.50.1
Ttro
three books reviewed hcrc appcar to cornplcrncnt each other quite neatly.
The first, Donald Black’s
Mariners arid
Cuslonrs
of
fhe
Police,
in the author’s
words,
“
recalls anthropological works of
a
century ago, reports
of
expedi-
tions into the hinterland and encounters with little-known tribes viewed
as
exotic or evcn savage.” In contrast, the collcction of essays in Pope and
Weiner’s
Moderri Po[icing
is
described
as
an
‘‘
insider’s vicw ”-the insiders
in question being past and present lecturers at the Police Stalt’ College,
nramshill. The third, and best
in
my view, is Mervyn Joncs’s
Orgarrisafiorial
Aspecfs
of
Police
Bekaviour.
This lays bare the inside of
“a
police organisa-
tion” with policc officers talking openly about their conditions of work,
frustrations and ambitions. Jones’s object is twofold
:
to look at thc organisa-
tional problems of
a
particular
I‘
research force,” and, more generally,
to
“
contribute to the body of knowledge on organisational sociology.”
As
both
a
sociologist and
a
serving policeman, Joncs is singularly well placcd to
do
both, although if Pope and Weincr are correct his social life must be
somewhat precarious
:
“
Policemen, with varying degrees of amuscnicnt and
impatience, dismiss the social sciences
as
unrealistic, unhelpful and contra-
dictory. Social scientists coniplain that the police do not welcome them,
understand thcir approach or appreciate thcir ideas
”
(p.
87).
AEter reading Donald Black‘s book, my sympathies, in this instance are
cntircly with the police. The
Marrners
atzd
Customs
of
rhe Police
seems, on
first sight, to have
a
reasonably cohcrcnt structure and rationale. Black
promises analyses
of
American police work, the
“
mobilisation
”
of
law,
crime detection, arrest and the exercise of discretion. The product, however, is
bitty and untidy.
A
series
of
articles, dating back to the early seventies, have
been stitched loosely together with
a
ncw introduction,
a
fresh chapter on
dispute settlement by the police and
a
conclusion (written together with one
M.
P.
Baumgartner) on the possibilities
of
self-help and depolicing. In the
course of the book, Black makes some fairly acute points, especially in the
carlier essays written before he had fallen into the peculiarly idiosyncratic
behaviourism which marks his more recent work. Thus for example his
analyses of the democratic bases of different stylcs
of
policing, if rather out-
dated, still repay reading especially in the context of the present debate in
Britain. Likewise, the modishly anarchistic concluding chapter on depolicing
has some points
of
interest.
Overall, following the extraordinary pattern set in his last book,
The
Behavioirr
of
Law
(1976),
Black claims his work
on
the police
to
be
a
“contribution to the sociological theory
of
law.” This
I
found rather dis-
concerting,
as
nowhere in the book is there
to
be found any discussion
of
even the basic principles
of
the law governing police behaviour. But then it
is not to rules of law (or evcn custom) to which Black addresses his theory,
475
476
THE
MODERN
LAW REVIEW
[Vol.
45
but to something
else
far more exotic.
His
words demand full quotation:
“Law may be understood as
a
quantitative variable, known by the degree to
which
people
define
or
respond to conduct as deviant within the framework
of
a
state.
The
more this occurs-whether in
a
single case
or
in
a
larger
setting such as
a
community or
a
socicty-the more law there is. In
a
civil
matter, for example,
a
lawsuit is an increment of law, since it defines the
conduct of a person
or
group as somehow undesirable.
If
the plaintiff
(or
complainant) wins, this further increases the quantity of law, since the
decision of the court constitutes an official endorsement of the Complaint.
If
the court awards compensation
for
damages to the plaintiff, law
is
increased
still more, and the greater the award the greater is the quantity of law.
Similarly in
a
criminal case, law increases with prosecution, conviction and
the severity of punishment”
(p.
2).
This may seem rather outlandish (if not
primitive?), but the place
of
the police in Black‘s scheme of things becomes
clear when we are told that with the arrival of a patrol car, the writing
of
a
crime report, a search, an arrest
or
a
charge,
so
there
is
progressively and
observably
“
more law.”
In this manner Black claims to have established the mcans with which to
measure the
“
quantity
”
of law. On the basis of his observations of American
police officers (some
10
years ago) he then proceeds to elaborate various
propositions about the world
of
law in general and the police in particular.
These, he maintains, allow us to predict the quantity and behaviour of law
likely to obtain in any given setting.
For
example, we are told that
“the
greater the relational distance between parties, the more likely
is
law to be
used to settle the dispute
”
(p.
49)
so
that
the police are more conciliatory
as the parties to
a
dispute are more intimate”
(p.
187,
italics in original).
Throughout the book Black provides
a
running catalogue of propositions and
relations of this sort, backed by painstaking (and often quite interesting)
statistical data. It
is
an impressive tour de force, but
one
surprising omission,
possibly of some relevance to the total concept, is the proposition (alluded
to
by Pope and Weiner?):
‘I
the more incomprehensible the platitude
is
rendered, the more the police will
look
sideways at and display hostility
towards the sociologist.”
After Black, the collection
of
essays in
Modern Policing
are, like the
traditional Bobby, welcome if rather pedestrian. As might be expected
“
moderation and tolerance
”
are the key to the problems encountered in
and with politics, the social services, community policing, accountability and
a
host of other areas examined. In total some
15
short essays make up three
scctions on thc “Nature of Policing,” the “Environment of Policing” and
“Managing Police Organisations.” There is no doubt that the collection is
valuable both as
a
basic introduction and as
a
source
of
materials.
Thus
for
examplc Superintendent Gordon Fraser of the Merseyside Police Computer
Team provides
a
lucid, if uncritical, account
of
recent developments in
police computing, Other writers, however, are perhaps more interesting for
the glimpses they permit of attitudes and debates within the police.
Thus
several of the essays display
a
common awareness of compromise and
contradiction, yet remain at root uncritical. This is particularly cvident in
three of the essays by tutors presently working at the Staff College.
John Rhind, for example, in an essay on
“The
Need for Accountability”
is clearly aware
of
the shortcomings
of
the present formal structure of
accountability
of
chief police officers. Indeed, he is prepared to take up
cudgels with the more vociferous opponents of reform, yet at the end
of
the day
he
is compelled to conclude that perhaps the present network
of “informal controls” is still the best. Likewise, Colin Vick, in an essay
“
Explaining Police Pessimism
”
speaks of police conservatism and their
pessimistic regard for the future. Changes in social values he sees to be
inevitable and rooted
“
in the contradictions of capitalism,” yet, by
a
peculiar logic, the police are exempt:
‘I
.
. .
the extension of democratic
control over the poke (is) unlikely to lead to any change
in
the police
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