Representing the Problem of Police Youth Relations: A Problem-Questioning Paradigm

• In Event: Comparative Perspectives on Police-Community Relations

Abstract

Improving police-youth relations has been recognised as a key objective of policy and practice for a number of years. Researchers have linked problems such as antisocial behaviour among young people to the nature and quality of youth-police relations. This way of ‘representing the problem’ has led to the development of national and local initiatives designed to improve young people’s attitudes towards the police in an effort to improve perceptions of police legitimacy. This presentation will report on an evaluation of a UK project called Police and Young People Together. The evaluation design was underpinned by the traditional ‘problem-solving’ paradigm commonly associated with evaluations in the area of crime control and criminal justice. However, in order to understand many of the frustrations, failures and inadequacies of the police and young people together project this paper will draw on the ‘problem-questioning’ paradigm advocated by the political scientist Carol Bacchi. Bacchi ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ approach draws on the Foucauldian and governmentality tradition and critically interrogates particular ways of representing the problem. This paper will argue that the challenges of the above project can be understood by drawing attention to the ‘problem representation’ that guided and directed the intervention.

Authors

• Olivia Pearson, University of the West of England, Bristol. UK

• Ian Walmsley, University of the West of England, Bristol. UK