Vulnerability and Policing: The Views of Service Providers and Users

• In Event: Vulnerability, Policing and the Limits of a Public Health Approach

Abstract

Vulnerability has become a prominent focus of British policing, informing the work of police and other service providers engaged in public safety. As an organising concept, vulnerability is simultaneously capacious and ambiguous, while its implications in practice remain insufficiently understood. In this article, we explore views on how vulnerability is used in the work of police and partner services through a Q methodology study that analyses the views and perspectives of service users, police officers, and service providers. The study identifies three distinct viewpoints — optimistic, sceptical, and ambivalent — regarding the role and value of vulnerability as a frame for policing. While the findings reveal strong support for an enhanced vulnerability focus and the benefits of coordinated harm reduction services, they also identify significant concerns about distrust, systemic failures, unmet needs, and resource constraints. We explore the implications of these findings, highlighting the vexed and ambivalent place of care and control within policing and the need to attend to the consequential harms of governing vulnerability through policing.

Authors

• Adam Crawford, University of Leeds

• Oznur Yardimci, University of York

• Kate Brown, University of York

• Chris Devany, University of York

• Tobias Kammersgaard, Aarhus University