NCJ Number
181264
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 38 Issue: 4 Dated: Autumn 1998 Pages: 623-634
Editor(s)
Richard Sparks
Date Published
1998
Length
12 pages
Annotation
An ethnographic study of police station procedures was conducted to explore the limitations of Packer's crime control and due process models of criminal justice.
Abstract
The research was carried out over a 3-month period in 1992 at two police stations in neighboring cities in the south of England. Observations were made of 144 eight-hour shifts to determine how police officers dealt with detainees when they were first brought into the police station. Interviews were conducted with 80 detainees, and informal conversations were held with police officers about particular cases and their jobs in general. Concentrating on the dynamics of police-detainee interaction in the significant minority of cases in which the police arrested individuals they had no intention of charging, it was found in these cases that policing was not geared toward criminal law enforcement but rather toward the achievement of police-defined objectives. It was also determined that Packer's models were both legal models and thus were not adequate in explaining what occurred in these cases. The author concludes that the cases are better explained by a social disciplinary model of policing, a model that avoids concern for legal and factual guilt and concentrates instead on subordinating sections of society viewed as anti-police and innately criminal. 33 references and 7 footnotes