The Right Way, Wrong Way, and the Blueville Way: Organizational Resistance to Policing Standardization

• In Event: Police Organizational Culture and Change

Abstract

This article examines how members of a police department use the social condition of their local setting to resist institutional efforts toward standardization. Using a case study which draws on the historical and socio-political features of a city in economic decline, this analysis shows how these local conditions inform the cultural resources police officers deploy. It is argued that individuals connect these features with repertoires of uniqueness – what they call “the Blueville Way” – to justify, sustain and even perform a general resistance to political efforts to standardize the provision of policing services. Data for this study include 100 interviews and ethnographic field notes gathered over an 18 month period spent with a police department; in headquarters, patrol cars and the streets. This paper contributes an account for the significance of “cultural match”, which refers to the notion that practices are driven by the social and cultural context in which an organization is embedded, thereby impeding full compliance with industry standards and criminal justice policies that are deemed "incompatible".

Author

• Holly Campeau, University of Toronto