BOOK REVIEW

Source: Policing and Society, Volume 13, Number 4, December 2003 , pp. 451-452(2)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

Fair Cop: Learning the Art of Policing, Janet B.L. Chan (with Chris Devery and Sally Doran). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ?20.00 pbk.

There is something of a convention in police studies that links formal training with "professionalism" and "subculture" with police deviance. The former holds that conformity to agency mission statements is an unmitigated good. The latter holds that any and all subcultural adaptations are, by definition, simply bad. This study is an important theoretical advance on this simplistic set of assumptions. Professionalism is a contested notion, the organisational subculture of policing is not homogeneous, all-powerful or unchanging, and neither is independent of human agency or broader social conditions. Police professionalism and policing subculture are ultimately intertwined in curious and dynamic ways and it is not always the case that our presuppositions are helpful in understanding what is going on.

This is a matter for empirical study as well as theoretical sophistication. Fair Cop is a major work. It is the first systematic cohort study combining both qualitative and quantitative methods since John van Maanen's research, which was conducted in the early-to-mid 1970s - over 25 years ago! Too little can be said in a short review about the longitudinal survey data, focus group materials and ethnographic field observations of new police recruits as they enter into their first weeks of active service. Drawing on the theoretical ideas of Pierre Bourdieu and this impressive array of empirical data, Janet Chan (together with Chris Devery and Sally Doran) illuminate the notions of police "occupational culture" and "professionalism", the relationship between police training in the academy and practical apprenticeship "on the street", and what counts as good and bad police work. Chan and her colleagues also tell us a great deal about how young neophyte police professionals grow into their new roles, and offer insights into what they think and feel about the processes of transformation they are experiencing. Along the way, the reader learns a good deal about the broader social and political conditions prevailing in New South Wales, Australia in the 1990s.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1043946032000117153

Publication date: 2003-12-01

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