Police Institution-led Gendered Cultural Transformation and Relationship Rebuilding: A Case Study

• In Event: Perceptions of Investigators and the Evolving Landscape of Policing

Abstract

Policing's entrenched masculinized culture perpetuates multifaceted harms within communities and among officers. Viewing policing through a restorative justice lens posits the institution as a locus of problems, change, transformation, and healing. However, empirical research on police sites engaging in dialogic institutional and cultural transformation that attend to higher level concepts about gendered power remain scarce. This preliminary study examines a UK police agency-led campaign addressing gendered aspects of police culture. We conduct a dialogic digital media content analysis of the organization's public-facing materials to explore its messaging and parameters. Our study aims to address the following questions: 1) In what ways can the initiative be considered an example of gender-based institutional transformative justice? 2) To what extent does the initiative promote healing in employee, community, and organizational relationships? 3) How does the role of the 'difficult other' manifest in the campaign. Findings include organizational efforts to raise awareness of kyriarchal structures, displays of officer cultural metamorphosis and vulnerability, use of reconciliatory language, openness to art as a communication medium, and organization-level acknowledgement of its former resistance to meaningful dialogue.

Author

• Tanyanne J. Ball, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY Graduate Center