Dr Samantha Weston, Dr Clare Griffiths and Dr Anne-Marie Day
The killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black African American male, on the 25th May 2020 set off a catalyst of events that brought into question the role and conduct of police officers. Footage of the arrest shows a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while he was pinned to the floor for over 9 minutes. The event led to protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism in both the US and the UK.
Shortly after on the 10th March 2021, in the search of missing Sarah Everard, the remains of a woman were discovered in Kent. The news came after a serving Metropolitan Police officer was arrested on suspicion of Sarah’s kidnap and murder. Reviving feelings of upset, anger and disappointment felt after the death of George Floyd, the legitimacy of the police came into question once again.
Commissioned in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, Louise Casey’s (2023) review laid bare a series of grave concerns about the Met Police’s culture and standards. Exposing examples of mistreatment and abuse of LGBTQ+, female, Black, Asian and minority ethnic officers and staff, alongside repeated unfair outcomes in communities resulting from under-protection and over-policing, Casey concluded that institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia pervades across the whole organisation. Although the recommendations are for radical reform of the Met Police, a series of failures have also been identified elsewhere resulting in six UK police forces being placed in ‘special measures’ (BBC, 2022).
Recognising that police legitimacy is under serious threat, policing by consent has again been identified as fundamental to the success of the British model of policing, while others have called for the police to be defunded. This latter suggestion to defund the police, normatively regarded as the more radical solution, has resulted in some debate within both academic and activist communities about what defunding the police might mean in a UK context. Fleetwood and Lea (2021) suggest that the demand to ‘defund the police’ in the USA cannot be easily translated to the UK. Unlike the funding arrangements in the USA, where local authorities manage budgets for local services that include the police, housing, social welfare and education, the police in the UK are largely funded from a central government pot. These differences, Fleetwood and Lea (2021) suggest, make the simple transfer of resources away from the police to social welfare more difficult. To this end, they argue that defunding the police does not have to mean abolishing them completely but rather placing restrictions on their powers and autonomy. More recently it appears that Bradford et al (2023: 14) would agree, suggesting that the best way for the police to contribute to a ‘deep’ sense of security is ‘by sticking to a narrow remit; doing the basics of responsive policing well, in ways that are fair and rights-regarding’.
For others, these solutions fall short of fully grappling with the role of the police in protecting wealth and reinforcing class order, and furthermore suggests a necessary role for the State. If there is a general acceptance that the State contributes to the creation of inequality and discrimination it seems remiss to then call on the State to resolve the harms that these issues have created. As McElhone, et al. (2022: 280) suggest in their response to Fleetwood and Lea (2021):
To call for the defunding of the police is not to call for its replacement with other forms of policing; it is to reject the presumption that policing is a ‘good’ and instead work towards a society with considerable less need of being policed – whether by the police or other repressive agencies.
But what might ‘a society with considerable less need of being policed’ look like? To begin trying to answer this question, we reflect briefly here on data we collected via a survey and focus groups with young people aged between 8-16 years old and from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds. The study evaluated a community-based programme aimed to engage children across a de-industrialised inner-city area in a range of outreach, mentoring, education and diversionary activities.
Despite very few of the young people reporting involvement in crime, all focus group participants were able to recall at least one negative encounter with the police. Not only did these interactions result in a dissatisfaction with, and mistrust of, the police but also led to a general feeling of unsafety among young people. When asked who they would call if they needed help, one young person responded, ‘Who calls the police to your home?’ suggesting that rather than representing help, the police represented a threat that should be avoided.
Conversely, the sessions offered by the community-based programme we evaluated appeared to be helping to reduce those negative, and sometimes fearful, encounters that young people were experiencing in their communities:
KENTAY: They help you off the streets.
JADEN: Instead of going to the park you just come here and play with everybody here.
NIKHIL: Yes, it’s safer anyway. You can meet friends instead of just being on the street where something can happen.
KENTAY: Yeah, on the park there’s drugs and drug addicts and everything
This exchange reveals that, against a backdrop of simultaneously feeling unsafe, unprotected, and mistrustful of the police, the role of community becomes quite important. It was clear, particularly during our discussions with Asian British boys, that a strong sense of community already existed for them. Even so, they spoke positively about the opportunities provided by the community-based programme to participate in activities that make them ‘feel relaxed’, where they can ‘let their guard down’ and ‘be with their friends’ without feeling ‘judged’.
So how does this evidence contribute towards reimagining ‘a society with considerable less need of being policed’? Our study revealed an example of a community resource that not only offers protection and refuge for young people, but also provides opportunities to engage in pro-social activities, encourage social connectedness, and develop skills in young people that included problem-solving and negotiating conflict. Such examples of positive social relations, if activated and harnessed towards positive collective action (or collective efficacy), have repeatedly been cited as a key factor in reducing conflict in communities.
There is still, of course, much work to do. Building community alternatives, assumes consensus around values, problems and how to resolve them. We must also be mindful of the acute levels of socio-economic deprivation experienced in these de-industrialised towns, and avoid responsibilising individuals and communities. Nevertheless, building community-based alternatives to policing may provide opportunities for us to reimagine how social problems might be responded to while also, as we note, strengthening connectedness.
Concluding comments
Although the events outlined at the beginning of this piece, along with several other accusations of misconduct and flawed investigations, seem to have clustered together within a very specific timeframe, debates about the conduct of police officers have nevertheless pervaded for some time. As Marcia Rigg, activist, justice campaigner and sister of Sean Rigg, very recently commented, the pain endured through the loss of a loved one ‘is perpetuated because there are so many Sean Riggs. There are so many George Floyds. And this has been happening for decades. It is nothing new at all’ (Arthanayake and Dias, 2020: np).
Perhaps it is time, therefore, to question our continued quest to find a role for the police. UK policing does not just need ‘root and branch reform’, as the Police Foundation (2022) suggests. Rather, to achieve an equitable and just society, which we believe is what we all want, we need to take collective action to challenge the existing order, which might begin with the dismantling of the police. As Ostrom (2000: 33) explains, ‘by consistently taking the power to make decisions about the ways to innovate, adapt, and coordinate efforts away from those who are directly affected, policymakers have created institutions that are less able to respond to the problems they were created to address’ (emphasis added).
This demand requires many of us to face some uncomfortable truths. The police were not created to promote justice but set up as a mechanism ‘to protect the affluent from what the Victorians described as the dangerous classes‘ (Woodcock, 1992 cited by Home Affairs Select Committee, 2006). The violence perpetrated against minoritised groups perhaps only reflects this historic purpose. In a similar vein, as our post-colonial peers continue to assert, criminology’s general refusal to reimagine a society with less need for policing both reinforces and reproduces technologies for the control of ‘others’ and simultaneously obscures the ongoing effects of the history of the police. The call to defund the police then, is not only to reimagine a ‘society with considerable less need of being policed’ but to also reimagine a society with considerable less need for criminology.
Dr Samantha Weston is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Birmingham. Email:s.k.weston@bham.ac.uk X: @Sam_K_Weston
Dr Clare Griffiths is a Lecturer in Criminology at Keele University. Email: c.e.griffiths@keele.ac.uk; X: @DrCEGriffiths
Dr Anne-Marie Day is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Email: a.day@keele.ac.uk X: @Anne_MarieDay
BSC Policing Network 