Moving beyond police-academic partnerships: Organisational and structural challenges and opportunities for police learning

• In Event: POL Panel 1. Police-academic Partnerships

Abstract

Policing reviews have highlighted the importance for the police organisation to ensure their response to contemporary policing problems is evidence-based and addressed by adequately trained and educated police officers and staff. Some police forces have responded to this through the development of stronger police-academic partnerships and the establishment of police universities based on the professionalization agenda, seemingly bridging the gap between policing practice and academic research forming the evidence-base for ‘good’ policing. However, the pathway to competent and confident police officers is not as straightforward as recommendations and supporters of the professionalization agenda like to portray. This paper will utilise findings from a PhD thesis exploring the role, value and culture of learning in Scottish policing and reflections from the field over recent years, to discuss the ways in which different drivers for change in the police learning landscape (professionalization, police-academic partnerships, degree entry, commitment to become a learning organisation) have advanced but not fundamentally overhauled the police organisation’s relationship with knowledge and learning. This paper will argue that factors beyond science and learning need to be focussed upon to develop accurate scaffolding for effective, sustainable and long-term police-academic partnerships that will advance not only policing practice but also recognise internal talent and capacity for change.

Author

• Larissa Engelmann, University of Leeds