Diversity Management and the Political Economy of Policing

Abstract

Diversity management and diversity training have been part of the standard management repertoire for several decades, and have recently received fresh impetus in the UK through the Equality Act 2010. The Police Services in England and Wales and in Scotland have further reasons to ensure the fair treatment of their own workforces and equality in their dealings with the public since the Macpherson Inquiry and the subsequent revelations relating to the Stephen Lawrence case. For the Police Service, diversity is particularly crucial as it forms a key element of public legitimacy and therefore impacts upon the very principle of ‘policing by consent’, the foundation of British policing (Jackson et al. 2012). However, diversity policies and diversity training tend to be viewed narrowly and used as a decontextualised medium to reduce racism (and other ‘isms’), seen as fulfilling their purpose regardless of the political and occupational context. This thesis, in contrast, suggests that there is a need to examine diversity management and diversity training, not only within an organisational context, but also within the broader political economy into which it is introduced and in which it is implemented.

Tracing the various aspects that make up the political economy of policing, the thesis outlines social, economic, legal and political influences, as well as the occupational culture of the police and its emotional ecology. Given the longitudinal design of the research, and the profound changes that have occurred to the political economy of policing over a relatively short time, the thesis is able to examine the impact of these changes on diversity practices within the Police Service of Scotland. Longitudinal data collected at two points in time, 2008/9 and 2013 – straddling not only the introduction of the Equality Act 2010, but also the creation of a single Police Service in Scotland, amongst other changes – suggests that significant changes have occurred to diversity training and diversity professionals, as well as to the ways in which diversity is managed. Using the notion of emotional spaces, diversity training in particular reveals complex interactions in the context of the changes, exposing the tensions police officers and police staff are currently experiencing. Drawing on the analytical framework of emotional ecology, it is argued that in addition to other changes to the political economy of policing, diversity training courses reflect demands for the police to be more open, sensitive and collaborative, by challenging and ‘opening up’ the emotional ecology of the police during training. Interviews and longitudinal observational data suggest that this process has intensified greatly since the creation of Police Scotland, thereby placing competing demands on officers to consolidate the new with the conventional emotional ecology of the police.