Social media, police excessive force and the limits of outrage: Evaluating models of police scandal
| Author | Justin R Ellis |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211017384 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211017384
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2023, Vol. 23(1) 117 –134
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/17488958211017384
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Social media, police excessive
force and the limits
of outrage: Evaluating
models of police scandal
Justin R Ellis
The University of Newcastle, Australia
Abstract
Recent criminological research has developed a processual conceptualisation of scandal to
analyse policing and criminal justice transgression and its attempted management. Through media
content analysis and in-depth interviews with police and non-police respondents, this article
applies criminological theories of scandal to a case of bystander-filmed police excessive force
at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade and uploaded to YouTube. The article
renders scandal more complex than existing models, emphasising outrage and surprise in cases
of bystander social media police scandals involving police excessive force, in conjunction with
Mawby’s processual model. However, it argues that despite the mobilising force of outrage
through social media, police capture of police complaint mechanisms and political opportunism
can normalise police transgression and blur lines of responsibility. Individual transgressions can
be linked to a macro, ‘chronic’ scandal of police excessive force, diminishing scandal’s conceptual
and practical purchase as a police accountability lever.
Keywords
Accountability, outrage, police excessive force, scandal, social media
Introduction
Scandal is often the basis for popular media representations of policing (Silvester and
Rule, 2013) and a perennial accountability lever in cycles of police reform (Prenzler,
2016; Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service, 1997; Sherman,
1978). Given scandal addresses questions of power, reputation and trust in public life
Corresponding author:
Justin R Ellis, College of Human and Social Futures, The University of Newcastle, University Drive,
Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
Email: Justin.Ellis@newcastle.edu.au
1017384CRJ0010.1177/17488958211017384Criminology & Criminal JusticeEllis
research-article2021
Article
118 Criminology & Criminal Justice 23(1)
(Thompson, 2000), more might be made of scandal as a conceptual tool within criminol-
ogy (Mawby, 2017). Scandal as a phenomena and concept is more closely associated
with politics than the image management of ostensibly apolitical criminal justice institu-
tions (Manning, 1978). Given the central role of publicising transgression as a catalyst
for scandal, there is merit in considering scandal as a framework to evaluate the impact
of bystander social media video on civilian and police sense-making of police excessive
force. At the same time, the revelatory force of exposure must be weighed against narcis-
sistic institutional reactions to scandal that prioritise the protection of an institution’s
reputation from negative publicity (Gardner, 2012). Of broader political consequence is
that transgression by institutions central to a society’s law and government can suggest
‘. . . something negative about the entire society’ (Sherman, 1978: 61).
This article situates current criminological debate on police scandal within the partici-
patory capacity of Web 2.0 social media technologies and recent decades of police
investment in professionalisation. This is an investment that has yet to meet civilian
expectations of police accountability (Chapman, 2014; Prenzler, 2016; Tyler, 2012). The
article applies criminological models and conceptualisations of scandal (Greer and
McLaughlin, 2013; Mawby, 2017; Sherman, 1978) to one of the first viral cases of police
excessive force filmed and publicised directly through YouTube in Australia – the police
assault and arrest of Sydney teenager Jamie Jackson Reed on 2 March 2013 at the Sydney
Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade (SydneyMardiGras2013, 2013).
The article argues that the absence of criminological research into police scandal can
be attributed in part to ongoing perceptions of police self-interest through police capture
of police complaint mechanisms and political opportunism (Chan and Dixon, 2007;
Prenzler, 2000, 2016). These two considerations can blur lines of responsibility for police
excessive force, confuse civilian understanding of police accountability obligations and
fall short of public expectations of an enhanced reciprocity enabled by the dialogic nature
of social media. This is despite the heightened emotion and reach of bystander social
media video of police excessive force. Privatised civil and administrative evaluations of
police use of force can contribute to a ‘chronic’, normalised scandal that leaves matters
of police accountability unresolved and interested audiences perpetually outraged.
This article (1) responds to Mawby’s call for debate ‘. . . on the utility of scandal as a
conceptual tool for the analysis of policing and criminal justice’ (Mawby, 2017: 485); (2)
brings a legal focus to the scrutiny of police scandal generated by police excessive force;
and (3) offers the concept of ‘chronic’ scandal to explain the recursive and unresolved
relationship between police excessive force, police accountability and civilian expecta-
tions. The findings show the 2013 Sydney Mardi Gras scandal adheres to Mawby’s four-
dimensional model of scandal, a local, micro scandal in this case; a police officer had
used excessive force – a transgression – and bystander video of the incident was publi-
cised through YouTube, triggering a range of institutional, public and legal responses and
judgements. At the same time, in-depth interviews with police and non-police respond-
ents demonstrate how outrage and surprise, drawn from Sherman’s (1978) model of
scandal, can render scandal more complex. This complexity can better articulate the
nature of bystander social media video generated police scandal in cases of police exces-
sive force. The article begins with a discussion of developments in surveillance technol-
ogy that have facilitated police scandal. It then considers the relationship between
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