towards a sociological theory of discretion

InternationalJournal of the Sociology of Law (1999) 27, 79^101Article No. ijsl.1999.0082, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Towards a SociologicalTheory ofDiscretion

ELAINECAMPBELLDepartment of Social Policy, University of Newcastle, U.K.

This article examines the sociological critique of Davis' (1969) seminal work ondiscretion. It suggests that, far from leading to a rejection of the case for explora-tion of the phenomena, as Smith (1981) argues, sociology can reframe the issuese¡ectively, if use is made of Giddens'Theory of Structuration. Giddens' ideas arereviewed, and then applied to issues about the behaviour of street-level o¤cialsthroughanexaminationof the strategic nature of police discretionarybehaviour.

Agency, Structure and the Legal Paradigm

Davis (1969) authorised, through legal reasoning, academic and political interestin the `con¢ning, structuring and checking''of discretionary power in the crim-inal process (ibid. Chapter 7). He brought togethermuch of the analysis of a num-ber of contemporary legal scholars, whose main aim had been to explore theambiguity and individualistic application of legal rules by judicial decisionma-kers. As Hawkins suggests of Davis'work, here was a forceful critique of the ex-tent of discretion formally allowed, and the manner of its exercise. Hawkinsgoes on:

Davis regarded discretion as themajor source of injustice and confronted thebasic question of how to reduce it . . . (He) at once increased academic inter-est in discretion and re-directed conceptions of it away from the somewhatbenevolent view then prevailing (Hawkins1992:16±17).

Although Davis was devoted to exposing the injustices which emerged from theexercise of discretionary power, his mission was more to remedy the improperuse of such power. His contributionwas therefore more political than analytical:according to Hawkins, Davis `created a new vocabulary of reformby arguing forthe con¢ning, structuringandchecking'of discretionary power'', (1992:17).Davis'work has faced a number of criticisms, such as its misplaced concern withindividual rights, rather than social justice; its close association with the ideal of

0194-6595/99/010079+23 $30�00 # 1999 Academic Press

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the `rule of law'; its mechanical view of decision-making; its assumption that pro-cedural justice will bring about substantive justice; its unrealistic expectations ofthe practical potential of a rule-based approach, (See, for example, Lacey 1992;Baldwin 1995). However, the key critical point is that the perspective is foundedon the assumption that to exercise discretion is to exercise free choice, con-strained only by legal limits (Davis1969: 4). Fromajurist's vantage point,withoutlegal limits, this freedom' remains unconstrained and unstructured, and choiceswill be made on the basis of individual, arbitrary and intuitive standards. Galli-gan, for example, considers discretion as `a sphere of autonomy within which one'sdecisions are in some degree a matter of personal judgement and assessment'',(1990: 8); Hawkins suggests that discretion `might be regarded as the space . . . be-tween legal rules in which legal actors may exercise choice'' (1992: 11); whileDworkin sees discretion as ` the hole in the doughnut . . . an area left open by a sur-rounding belt of restriction'' (1977: 31, Emphasis added in each quotation).There is noroom within this paradigm to consider how far individual free choice'may bealready, collective, ordered, routinised and structured by phenomena other thanthe law itself.

From a social scienti¢c standpoint, human agency is rarely, if ever, voluntary.All human behaviour is both structured and structuringÐalthough how thismay be so is understood in di¡erent theoretical ways. In the social world, legalityis only one structure amongst a thousand limitations' (Schneider, 1992: 79)Ðthese do not evaporate, conveniently, when discretion is exercised. Moreoveronce structure' is conceptualized in more holistic and £exible ways, then `discre-tionary decisions are rarely as unfettered as they look'', (Schneider 1992:79) (see,for example, Bankowski & Nelken 1981; Smith 1981; Feldman 1992; Schneider1992; Baldwin 1995). At the same time, discretionary decision-making is `a con-tinuing process, a subtle and shifting a¡air that is the result of substantial humaninterpretative work'' (Baldwin, 1995: 25). It cannot, therefore, be bracketed o¡from other forms of human action and interaction. Similarly, Lacey argues,

The persistent di¤culty, exempli¢ed in the work of Davis himself, is thatwhen lawyers open their minds to new areas of study, they do not necessarilyalso open their minds to the appropriateness (or lack of it) of applying con-ventional legal analysis and solutions to the newly discovered areas.. . .(360).Sociologists' recognition of discretion as a crucially important and pervasivesource of executive power has..led to an emphasis on the importance of con-text in understanding the nature of discretion. This acknowledgement ofcontext-relativity has generated . . . an increasing concern to gather an ap-preciation of agents' own understandings of their discretionary actions . . . .This interpretive, `phenomenological', agent-centred approach has in turngenerated insights relating to the existence among those who exercise discre-tion of operational ideologies', frames of relevance', or assumptiveworlds'Ðsystems of values and beliefs which allow agents to make sense of, to imposeexplanations on, and to order events in theworld inwhich they are operating(Lacey1992: 360/364).

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Lacey is optimistic that sociology will eventually `rub o¡' on lawyersÐ` if thedangers of the legal paradigm are to be averted, jurisprudential and legal ap-proaches will clearly have to be modi¢ed in the light of the insights of socialscience'' (ibid.: 380). Giddens theory of structuration o¡ers a sociological perspectiverelevant to this exercise.The next section therefore examines this.

Anthony Giddens' Theory of Structuration

The problem of the relation between the individual and society, or between ac-tion and social structure, lies at the heart of the social scienti¢c enterprise. In asequence of major works (1976, 1979, 1984), Giddens has re-examined the majortraditions of classical and contemporary theory, identi¢ed their strengths andweaknesses, and drawn from them a range of lessons and ideas. Giddens regardsthe action/structure dualism as a `phoney war'. By refusing to accept the tradi-tional split in sociological reasoning, he rejects the mutual exclusiveness of theo-rizing about either action or social institutions. In its place, Giddens proposes ashift from a static to a dynamic perspective, that is, rather than view social struc-ture as ¢xed, what must be grasped is the essentially recursive nature of sociallife. In other words, rather than seeing action and structure as oppositional ele-ments of a dualism, we should regard them as complementary dimensions of aduality, the duality of structure. By this, he argues, ` I mean that social structuresare both constituted by human agency, and yet at the same time are the very med-ium of this constitutions' (Giddens 1976:121, original emphasis). In this sense, struc-ture is not external to the agent, operating as it were, behind her back; not is itsimply and solely constraining. Rather, social structures are constituted by socialaction and, in turn, provide resources and power from which individuals con-struct strategies of action' (Swidler1986: 227, cited in Messerschmidt 1993:77).

Giddens suggests that agency is based on two fundamental human qualitiesÐcapability and knowledgeability.That is, agents are capable in as far as they are able toact otherwise, thereby breaking routines. Human agency, then, has a transforma-tive capacity. Agents are also knowledgeable about the conditions of their daily activ-ities, although, importantly, Giddens di¡erentiates two levels inwhich agents areknowledgeable about their social environmentÐat the level of discursive conscious-ness and practical consciousness. Elaborating on Gar¢nkel's concept of accountabil-ity', andWittegenstein's notion of `knowing a rule', Giddens writes:

The distinctive feature of human action . . . I take to concernwhat Gar¢nkellabels the accountability'of human action. I think the notion of accountabil-ity to be a highly important one, meaning by it that the accounts which ac-tors are able to o¡er of their conduct draw upon the same stocks of knowledgewhich are drawn upon in the very production and reproduction of their ac-tion.The giving of accountsÐor the supplying of reasons'Ðfor action refersto the discursive capabilities and inclinations of actors, and by no means ex-hausts the connections between stocks of knowledge'and action.What actorsare able to say'about their activities is by nomeans all that they `know'about

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them. Practical consciousness refers to tacit knowledge that is skilfully employedin the enactment of courses of conduct, but which the actor is not able to for-mulate discursively. The knowledgeability involved in practical consciousnessconforms generally to the Wittgensteinian notion of `knowing a rule' or`knowing how to go on', (Giddens,1982: 31, some emphasis added).

Discursive consciousness equates with Mills' (1940) notion of `vocabularies of mo-tives', Scott and Lyman's (1968) accounts', Sykes and Matza's (1957) techniquesof neutralization', Hewitt and Strokes' (1975) disclaimers', and Baldwin's (1995)more recent ideas about discourses of justi¢cation'Ðall of which encapsulate abelief in the almost limitless reparative potential of language. In this sense, dis-cursive consciousness is not a`new' insight, so much as a di¡erent label for a widelyrecognized human capacity. On the other hand, Giddens hasbroken newgroundwith his concept of practical consciousness. It refers to a level of `knowing'what it isappropriate to do in particular situations without necessarily being able to putthis knowledge into verbal or linguistic form. Police o¤cers, say, will tend to getonwith doing what is required of them, but will have no need to discuss or articu-late the underlying rules, expectations and requirements associatedwith`proper'police behaviour. Such knowledge includes much of what wemight call commonsense'.

Knowledgeability, however, is always bounded òn the hand by the unconsciousand on the other by the unacknowledged conditions/unintended consequences ofaction'', (Giddens1984:282).Taking these points in turn: Giddens uses the conceptof the ùnconscious' to refer to the dimension of human agency that is motivatedby the need for ontological security and a sense of trust: he believes that without thebasic security of knowing `what is going on'around them, actors su¡er acute an-xiety in their social relations, and become disoriented from their social identity.Actors maintain their ontological security not only through successful re£exivemonitoring of interaction situations (knowledgeability), but also through their rou-tinization (interactions which are predictable and stable over time), and regiona-lization (interactions that are ordered in space). In other words, and importantly,these insights into the unconscious level of motivation allow Giddens to empha-sise the repetitive nature of day-to-day life, and the distanciation of human actionin time±spaceÐput simply, people get on with their everyday a¡airs in particu-lar places at particular times, in interaction with others whom they regularlyexpect to ¢nd there.

Perhaps more crucial to the duality principle which Giddens needs to establish,and completing what he calls his strati¢cation model of action (Giddens 1982: 30), ishis account of unintended consequences and the unacknowledged conditions of action. Im-portantly, Giddens proposes that while much day-to-day life occurs as a contin-uous £ow of intentional action, many acts have unintended consequences whichmay become unacknowledged conditions of further actionÐperhaps the best ex-emplar of this process is the ideal type of the freemarket (Mills1958). As Giddensputs it, àctors have reasons for what they do, and what they do has certain


speci¢able consequences which they do not intend'' (1984: 294). He goes on to ar-gue that ` in so far as unintended consequences are systematically involved in so-cial reproduction, they become conditions of action also'' (Giddens,1982:30). It isthis insight that permits the theorist to make the link between action and struc-ture. AsThompson sums up:

. . . in pursuing some course of action the agent draws upon rules and re-sources which comprise structure, thereby reproducing unintentionally thestructural conditions of further acts (1989:71±72).

What, then, of structure? Followingde Saussure, Giddens develops a new concep-tion of structurewhich is tobe understood, not as a ¢xed form, but as presences andabsences. In other words, structure only exists' at the moment it is employed ininteraction. In this sense, the structural world operates as a part±whole relation-ship; it cannot be perceived in its totality in concrete situations. Giddens oftenrepeats the point that structures'are out of place'and out of time'; they have avirtual existence, later referring to them as `momentary' (Craib 1992: 42), and as`memory traces' (Giddens 1984: 377). ` Structures'', he argues, are rules and re-sources, which are usedby actors in interaction, and it is only through this use thatsocial relations between individuals and society `are stably reproduced over timeand spaceÐas forming something like patters'' (Giddens 1982: 33±34).Thus, theuse of rules and resources are deeply implicated in the transformative capacity ofactors to do otherwise'Ðwhat Giddens refers to as the dialectic of control'Ðandthereby mediate, reproduce or change social relations.

There are di¤culties in accepting his ideas without some quali¢cation. Craib(1992), for example, argues that the action/structure divide in sociology is there` for a very good reason'' (ibid.: 9); that complexity is lost in Giddens'accounts ofothers' theories; and that it is not possible (or desirable) to develop a synthesizingtheory of the socialworldwhich is `made up of many di¡erent phenomenawhichdo not ¢t together'', (ibid.:7). Second, there those who take issue with key concep-tual aspects of his structurationist approach. In their edited volume Held andThompson (1989) bring together a range of critical arguments which variouslycall into question the ontological, epistemological, conceptual andempirical pre-mises of Giddens'approach. Bernstein (1989), for example, sees Giddens' handlingof the critical character of social theory and social science generally, as proble-matic; Bauman (1989) andThompson (1989) complain of Giddens' conceptuali-zation of structure', in particular that `rules and resources' have rendered theconcept more elusive and mysterious than ever. Je¡erson (1996) complains thatstructuration theory fails to incorporate a theory of subjectivity: commenting onMesserschmidt's (1993) structurationist explication of the nature of the relation-ship between masculinities and crime; he states, ` insofar as this psychic dimen-sion enters at all, it does so via a wholly inadequate concept of the subject:re£exively rational, implicitly unitary, decidedly Meadian. It will not do'' (1996:341). Feminist authors have commented on Giddens failure to address the gen-dered nature of structure; as Murgatroyd (1989) argues, he tells `only half the

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story''Ðsee also,Wol¡ensperger (1991), whomodi¢es Giddens'approach so that itcan accommodate the `new' concepts of twofold reproduction'and engenderedstructure'.

A third strand of critique suggests that Giddens over-di¡erentiates structura-tion theory from alternatives ( Jary 1991). Layder's (1997) theory of social do-mains', for example, would seem to possess many of the synthesizing qualities ofstructuration theory, and like Giddens, Layder draws his inspiration from bothstructuralist and phenomenological theorists. Similarly, Connell's (1995) in£uen-tial work on masculinities is implicitly structurationist: but rather than cite Gid-dens as his theoretical source, Connell has developed his own position on action/structure from a synthesis of perspectives drawn from psychoanalysis, historyand ethnography. Equally, Degeling and Colebatch (1984) propose a structura-tionist approach to understanding the organization of public administration: butdo so eclectically by drawing on Cicourel, Bourdieu, Hebermas and Giddens toexpound their own position. A fourth line of criticism doubts Giddens' relevanceto empirical research. This has been most forcefully argued by Gregson (1989).She complains that Giddens' guidelines for empirical work re£ect ontologicalconcerns rather than empirical ones; that the research studies that Giddens usesto exemplify certain aspects of structuration theory had no original need of struc-turationist insights; and that Giddens is ambivalent about whether theory shouldful¢ll a ` potential service role for empirical work'', or whether empirical workshould be used ` to illustrate structuration concepts''or ` interrogate structurationtheory'' (ibid.: 244). Although Gregson's analysis raises a number of importantpoints, the appropriate response is to make Giddens' ideas meaningful for thestudy of discretion.The article will do that, using the widely explored case of po-lice discretion.

Policing Structures

The starting point is that we need to consider policing in terms of a combinationof structuresÐspeci¢cally `law', `work' (a notion embracing both organizationalstructure and colleague±group culture), and democracy'. This position isstrongly in£uenced by two speci¢c texts: the ¢rst is Grimshaw and Je¡erson's(1987). Interpreting Policework; the second is Reiner's (1989) state of the art' reviewof the politics of police research, and to some extent his broader study,The Politicsof the Police.Through very di¡erent analytical routes, these authors have arrivedat a common perception of `policing structures'. But it is not enough simply toopen our eyes to the structuralworld of policing, as if it existed outside of policingpractice; wemust also recognize that these structures exist out of time and space',and are only extant `as the reproduced conduct of situated actors with de¢niteintentions and interests'', (Giddens1976:127).

For example, while Grimshaw and Je¡erson (1987) discuss how police opera-tional practice is constrained and determined by the inter-connected structuresof law, work and democracy, Reiner points out that a central concept in the U.K.


policing tradition is that of `policingby consent' (Critchley1978; Reiner1992). Asnoted by Reiner (1992: 61), public acceptance of professional policing in the nine-teenth century was interdependent with a wider process of paci¢cation of socialrelations, and relied for its success on its perceived adherence to the rule of law, itscapacity to be an e¡ective, disciplined and e¤cient force organized into a bu-reaucratic hierarchy, and its claim to be representative of all class interests. Un-derpinned, then, by the structures of law, organization and democracy,`policingby consent' represents the ideal in policing relations: but its socio-political con-struction and maintenance is a brittle and fragile process that is never quiteended, since arguably it is never quite realized. On the strength, then, of bothGrimshaw and Je¡erson's (1987), and Reiner's (1989) accounts of `policing', it ispossible to identify what we will call `law',`work'and democracy'as inherent fea-tures of public policing institutions; as regular andpatterned forms of interactionwhich construct policing relations of relatively durable quality, yet of obvious his-torical variability. Giddens himself admits themethodological need tobracket o¡the structural properties of social institutions; these canbe treated as givens'Ðsolong, he adds, as we do not lose sight of the idea that they are produced and re-produced through human agency (1984: 288).

The following sections will examine the ways in which the structures'of `law',`work' and democracy' are implicated in policework. Giddens' ideas on the en-abling and permissive qualities of structure'are explored in `law'. In organiza-tion', the idea of `unintended consequences' is examined in greater depth. Indemocracy', Giddens' ideas on discursive consciousness' are considered. Thesearguments lead us toward a consideration of police culture(s), seen as `practicalconsciousness'.

In the Name of the Law

The law accords the police extensive discretion and is essentially enabling. Itacts as a powerful resource for the police covering much of their behaviour(however motivated) with a legal canopy. Individual laws are often open-textured in nature, providing the police with considerable latitude of action;and so many laws are available to cover particular situations that the policecan always choose some law which ¢ts their purpose . . . .The old assumptionthat unacceptable police practices contradict the law can now be discarded,and the law properly understood can now be seen as enabling, (McConville,Leng & Sanders 1991:174/5 and189).

In this extract, the authors summarize an argument borne out by their extensiveempirical study of the pre-trial criminal processÐfrom the construction of a sus-pect population, to police arrest, through to the prosecution of cases by theCrown Prosecution Service. They highlight, amongst other things, the way inwhichmost of what the policewish to achieve is realizable through the use of lawsrelating to police procedureÐstop and search, arrest, detention, interviewing,

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restrictions on access to a solicitor, and so on. This is a pretty standard view, ofcourse, of how the police use law as a resource for action, but McConville et al.take the argument a little further.They point out that in order to stop and searchand/or arrest a person, the police, in law, must have `reasonable suspicion' beforedoing so: but since there is no de¢nition of what precisely is meant by the term,and legal rule is left open to considerable interpretation.Moreover, the vaccum is¢lled ` not by random or patternless policing, but by the structuring of discretionaccording to informal working rules developed by the police'', (ibid.: 22±23.). Asthey argue, simply `being known' to the police, or having `previous'; resisting theimposition of police authority by, say, refusing to turn o¡ a ghetto-blaster' (ibid.:25: Case AT-A053); ¢tting into a stereotypical image of suspiciousness', throughappearance, incongruity and lack of co-operation; or being the subject of ananonymous tip-o¡', provide very dubious grounds for the exercise of the legalpower to stop and search, and/or arrest, but they are none the less enabled (madelawful) by the ill-de¢ned requirement to have `reasonable suspicion'. The struc-ture of law, then, is su¤ciently £exible to allow for creativity, and through thatprocess is reproduced and transformed: as McConville et al. put it `law reform' isalso very much a product of police operational practices . . .The police are con-stantly striving to push out and extend the boundaries of `legal' behaviour andthey do this by their practice (1991:177).

Other authors have demonstrated the reverse; that is, how law canbe used as aresource for police inaction. In a perceptive analysis of the police handling ofsmall scale disputes, Kemp, Norris and Fielding (1992) draw our attention to theextent to which the police use their legal powers to terminate police involvementin disputes. They show, for example, how in 64 percent of incidents which in-volved allegations of a criminal infraction (such as accusation of theft or assault),the police resolved the situation by taking no action at all, or threatening to takeaction on a future occasion: yet many of these cases were actually resolved inlegal terms.The case of an alleged assault on a female makes the point. Here, awoman alleged that her landlord's agent, living in the £at above her, had shoutedat her, become abusive, and had ¢nally hit her, over a dispute about an unpaidelectricity bill. The authors emphasise how this particular incident which re-quired `no further action' would appear, in terms of police records, to have notbeen resolved as a legal matter.Yet, on closer inspection, this was far from thecase.They state:

In e¡ecting the resolution, the o¤cer elicits and makes use of informationwhich he sees as relevant to the handling of the incident. This concerns thenature of the dispute and the assault; the relationship between the assailantand the woman; and the extent of her injuries.The latter is especially perti-nent since it determines the nature of the o¤cer's legal power to intervene. Asthe woman is calm and su¡ering from no bruising, Frank (correctly) identi-¢es the legal category as one of common assault. Consequently this is not anarrestable o¡ence. If the womanwants to take legal action against the man,she must do so herself . . . (but) Frank o¡ers her the informal action of going


to have a word with him'. Her acceptance of this course of action is followedby the promise of further police action for breach of the peace if he shouldbother her again (ibid.: 94±95).

This particular study not only convincingly demonstrated the way in which thelaw is routinely invoked to justify a`non-legal'resolution of incidents, but also howthe use of legal language and terms helps to reinforce police authority to de¢nethe situation; to assert ownership' of the dispute; and to ` impose a calculus inwhich the disputants are themselves accorded various measures of legitimacy''(ibid.:17).

Contrary to this, Sheptycki (1993) has argued that while o¤cers may situatetheir understandings of incidents within the framework of law, the conceptualcategories they actually use are drawn from a repertoire of terms which are fa-miliar to most people. Of one o¤cer's claim to have dealt with an incident of in-terpersonal violence within a legal framework, Sheptycki states:

He understands his application of the categories of `victim',`villain', guilty',`innocent', crime', and `no-crime'as applying a legal framework. In fact it isa system of institutionalized conceptual categories which the police use toprocess incidents of interpersonal violence. In this respect, police o¤cers' un-derstandings are probably not all that di¡erent from the average citizen(1993: 54±56).

At the level of generalities, the use of `institutionalized'categories facilities com-munication between the police and members of the public. But it glosses overKemp et al.s point that the police are able to specify the legal intricacies of inci-dents (however incorrectly), and through this process are ¢rst, able to promotethe legitimacy of policing, which is supposed to be governed by legalistic proce-dures; and second, to dominate policie±citizen encounters. In the incident dis-cussed above, the authors report that:

Her lack of knowledge of the law, of what can and cannot be done, or evenwhat is in her best interest to do means that she is heavily dependent on theo¤cers' reading of the situation (1992: 95).

Thus far, it would seem that the law is far more enabling permissive, than it isconstraining of police action. But this leaves out McConville et al.s insight that` it is the very enabling structure of the law which can centrally constrain thepolice'' (1991: 184: original emphasis). The elasticity of the law, they argue, ` setsup contradictions, uncertainties and doubt in the minds of the police, . . .(undermining) their con¢dence in the legitimacy, moral as well as legal, of theirownbehaviour'' (ibid.:184). Put another way, the law provides a normative disci-plinary framework beyondwhich police o¤cers know that actions are illegal.Theconstraining element of the law does not prevent police illegalities, but it doesplace limits on the extent to which illegal action continues or indeed £ourishes.

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They suggest that themalleability of the law encourages the development of cov-ering' behaviour, which enables o¤cers to obscure the true character of their (il-legal) activityÐin Giddens' terms, a discursive consciousnesswhich can account for,or supply reasons for particular actions.`Covering' is not limited to explicitly illi-cit behaviour, but also includes legitimate action where the law is interpretedconservatively, or conversely over-zealously. Illegal behaviour is governed bythe extent to which the police can get away with it', and à major element of thisis the probability, if a particular rule is broken, of detection and/or signi¢cantpunishment'' (ibid.: 185). McConville et al., then, hint at the way in whichorganizational rules (in this instance internal disciplinary procedures) are impli-cated in police practices in combination with legal rules. Similarly, there areindications that legal rules and legal categories canbe substitutedby policework-ing rules and institutional categories, where the latter derive from the organiza-tional and occupational structures of policework. Indeed, Kemp et al. (1992)spend time in their introduction situating the `handling of disputes'within its or-ganizational context, noting how questions of policy, deployment, promotion,operational priorities, trainingandculture interact with those of lawand legality.But since the primary focus of the study is an examination of `law in action',rather than organization and occupation in action', the analysis does not go onto explore these issues in any depth. It is to these questions that the next sectionturns.

The Organizational Machine

In his review of the organization of policing in the twentieth century, Reiss com-plains that the` serious and systematic studyof police organization and behaviour. . . remains for themost part a cottage industry'' (1992: 54, emphasis added). Otherauthors have made a similar point. Grimshaw andJe¡erson (1987), for example,cite Friedrich (1978), and Bittner (1970) to argue that studies of the police organi-zation adopt a scienti¢c±management'or `norm-derivative'approachwhich paystoo much attention to the ìdeal', at the expense of attending ` to a level of socialreality that is unrelated to ideal formulations'', (Bittner 1970: 6, cited in Grim-shaw & Je¡erson 1987: 37, n4).This is matched by a tendency ¢rst, to develop or-ganizational strategies as if their value was self-evident and incontestable; andsecond to assume that these ideal formulations can be unproblematically im-posed on a complex and multi-faceted policing taskÐany failure to achieve theideal can be explained as a breakdown of communication or understanding, as ablockage ìn the machine', (Grimshaw & Je¡erson 1987:197). Morgan and New-burn's (1994) reviewof the discussion document publishedby the Independent Com-mittee of Inquiry into the Role and Responsibilities of the Policemay be drawn on tomakethe point. In an e¡ort to improve the e¡ectiveness of police patrol work, Morganand Newburn point out how increased expenditure on `law and order'; thegranting of additional powers for patrol work; the expansion of the commercial


security industry; and the development of voluntary self-help initiatives, have notonly failed to reduced crime levels, but has brought in its wake ùnwanted conse-quences'.They go on to argue:

Becausemost key police activities aremulti-functional andcrossfertilisingÐpatrol work, for example, arguably serves to prevent crime (surveillance anddeterrence), reassure the public (fear reduction), aid detection (most intelli-gence leading to crime clear-ups' comes from the public and is best stimu-lated if the public have regular contact with and con¢dence in the police),and facilitates local problem solving (thereby preserving public tranqui-lity)Ðthen neither prioritising, hiving o¡ or abandoning what may be saidtobe ancillary police tasks, can realistically provide awayout of the impasse;the most that such exercises can be expected to generate is a marginal redis-tribution of policing resources andpriorities, a shift unlikely to be noticed bythe public, (1994:1092).

On this analysis, the scienti¢c±managment' approach to police organization isalmost bound to fail: but rather than place this failure exclusively at the door ofpolice recalcitrance,ìmplementation gap', lack of resources, inadequate training,and so on, we should aim to understandwhat it is about the way inwhich the jobis de¢ned and organized which itself creates di¤culties and contradictions forpolice o¤cers', (Baldwin & Kinsey 1982: 26±27). But in addition to this, we mustalso take account of how structural contradictions are resolved in everydaypolicepractices, and how their resolution reproduces and transforms the way that poli-cing is organizedÐto recall Giddens, we need to examine the way in which ùn-intended consequences' form the ùnacknowledged conditions of further action'.This can be best demonstrated through the example of ùnit beat policing'(UBP).

The development of UBP in the1970swas, of course, made possible by contem-porary advances in technologyÐthe advent of the Panda car, two-way radios,and thewidespreadavailability of the telephone. At the same time,UBPrequiredsome changes to the existing administrative structure of policing.That is, policeforce areas (which themselves had been almagamated and streamlined over theprevious decade) were now broken down into a number of divisions; these, inturn, were (and continue to be) made up of sub-divisions or ùnit areas', furtherdivided into typically eight ùnit' beat areas'.

Baldwin and Kinsey's study of UBP (1982) explored the structural contradic-tions and dilemmas which the strategy posed for operational policing; and sec-ond, how these contradictions were resolved in practice, resulting in thetransmutation of UBP into `¢re-brigade' policingÐan operational approachwhich was never intended, but which nevertheless continued to structure policepatrol work. In the ¢rst place, Baldwin and Kinsey (1982) point out the changesthat UBP made to the volume and diversity of the workload.The ease of report-ing incidents by telephone, and the speed at which incoming calls could be des-patched to patrol and panda o¤cers, inevitably increased the policing workload,

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and the public demand for apolice response: as Baldwin andKinsey argue,` thereis a self-destructive logic to the process: the more quickly more calls are dealtwith, the more calls are made and consequently the more work there is'' (1982:33). Consequently, the unbearable pressure of work thwarted much of the origi-nal good intentions of the UBP approach: as o¤cers sought a way through thedemands of the `new'operational structure, they transformed the way their workwas organized. Grimshaw andJe¡erson (1987), for example, identi¢ed temporalpatterns in the `rhythm of shiftwork', noting a clear contrast between the desul-toriness of the day shift whichwas comparatively quiet and punctuated by trivialchores, and the fast action of the night duty, which tended to respond to violentdisputes and burglaries and produce arrests. Moreover, both these authors, andBaldwin andKinsey, observed theway inwhich UBP promoted an occupationalstructurewhichwasboth specialized and fragmented. For example, Baldwin andKinsey (1982) point out how the co-ordination of tasks for the area team' wasdriven by the collator, which removed much of the discretion of o¤cers to `worktheir own patch'.

These authors also note how the collator ¢ltered public requests through aframework of police relevance which ` prevents the dissolution of police actioninto literally `what the public wants' '' (ibid.: 75). In this sense, the collator notonly grades and sorts the call system, and organizes the mobilization of theteam', but also structures the nature of police±public relations. They go on toreport that incidents dealt with tended to be unrelated to each other, involvingmembers of the public widely separated in space; and even when police±publicinteraction did occur there was little time for `relationships' to develop. Evenwithout the creation of the new specialism of the police collator, traditional oc-cupational roles were transformed by UBP. Baldwin and Kinsey (1982) pointout how the main task of criminal investigation continued to be carried out bythe area detective, but the area patrol o¤cers and the `panda men' were nowunable to see a good' case through from beginning to end: rather, the `pandapatrol' tended to make the bulk of arrests, while area constables specialized' intrivial incidents and routine administrative tasks, such as issuing summons andwarrants.

Although this has been a necessarily brief overview of UBPand its transmuta-tion into`¢re-brigade'policing, it shows how ideal formulations of organizationalstructure set into motion a series of contradictions which become apparent, andare resolved at the level of practice. In this instance the contraction'of a substan-tially increased volume of work reproduced a temporally patterned workstructure characterized by fragmentation and specialization. Moreover,specialization encouraged the development of a calibrated scale'of policing tasks;and, in contradistinction to the formal rank structure, the station collator and thedetective emerged at the apex of an informal operational hierarchy. In addition,the need to provide a `rapid response'on the one hand, and the need to keep upwith the workload, on the other, produced an operational style which workedagainst the development of good' police±public relations, and, for that matter,


the cultivationof `working relations'with local informants. Of course, the discus-sion could have gone on to examine how the operational structure which didemerge, inter-related not only with the `law'and democracy', but also with otherorganizational structures, such as supervision, discipline, promotion, recruit-ment, training, and so on. But even without these foci, the point is surely madethat organizational practice' and organizational structure' are locked into adialectic which constantly transforms and reproduces the nature of the policingtask and policing relations.

Democratic Policing

The notion of `policing by consent'encapsulates the presence of a democratic rela-tion', although what precisely is meant by democracy', and how it applies to poli-cing, are not issues that have been satisfactorily settled. As Jones, Newburn andSmith (1996:188) argue,` there appears to be universal agreement about the desir-ability of democratic policing', but equally universal disagreement about what ex-actly this would constitute''. These authors provide a valuable inventory of thoseperspectives on democratic structuring that have gained the most currency, andwhich currently inform discussion on police democratizationÐthe tripartitemod-el; the`local democracy'model; the communitydemocracy'model and the`marketsolution'or `new public management'model. They go on to distill from these per-spectives a set of core principles whichmight be applied to the democratic govern-ance of the policeÐequity, delivery of service, responsiveness, distribution of power,information, redress, and participation. Moreover, they argue, ` the essence of democ-racy lies in balancing the di¡erent values within the ideal against each other'',(ibid.: 193). For Jones et al. the existing (and potential) structures of the tripartitesystem', the `local democracy' model, community democracy', and `new publicmanagement', lack the capacity, both individually and collectively, to realize thisbalanced ideal. Hence, the authors move on to outline a new framework of inter-connected structures of accountability' which can embody the necessary balanceof democratic values: the framework includes proposals for the development of,interalia, local surveys, lay visitor schemes, tape andvideo recording of police inter-views, andan independent complaints procedures. As anaside, Iamnot convincedthat these activities and provisions constitute structures' in the sense that Giddensuses the term. Rather, such developments are the `material equipment', facilities'and/or `mechanisms' for transforming, exploiting and reproducing democratic re-lations. Hence, Jones et al.s structures of accountability'are perhaps better under-stood as Giddens' `modalities'Ð` the lines of mediation between interaction andstructure'' (Thompson 1989: 60).The value of their work does not lie in their con-crete proposals for the democratic governance of the police, so much as their dis-tillation of a common core of democratic criteria'. In this respect, there areparallels between their analysis, and Baldwin's (1995) discussion of the searchfor process values' as indicators of the legitimacy of governmental processes.

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But whereas Jones et al. try to accommodate a full complement of democraticideals' within one framework, Baldwin doubts the possibility of such a happyblending', given that the di¡erent perspectives fromwhich these ideals'are derivednot only compete to achieve dominance as the accepted approach, but also har-bour internal inconsistencies and tensions. Thus, Baldwin calls for an approachwhich:

. . . explores the nature of legitimacy claims or attributions and employs thenotion of a discourse of justi¢cationwithinwhich certain values operate. Sucha notion holds that evaluations of procedures are, as a matter of practice,argued out with reference to certain recognized values (1995: 41±42: originalemphasis).

Although Baldwin is concerned with questions of `legitimacy' rather than de-mocracy', his analysis and ideas have certain advantages over Jones et al.s ap-proach. To elaborate: Jones et al.s framework mirrors the `norm-derivative'orientation discussed above; consequently, they not only fail to acknowledge theinter-relationship of democratic, organizational and legal `norms', but they arealso forced to evaluate police behaviour in terms of its distance from an `ideal',where distance' is almost bound to exist. In contrast to this position, Baldwin'sapproach is more inductive, and he employs what might be usefully termed a`norm-generative'orientation. Baldwin argues that when claims are made aboutthis or that process being democratic'or not, interactants draw on a language ofjusti¢cation, invoking those values commonly recognized and considered as de-mocratic'onesÐ` they may each place di¡erent emphasis on the furtherance ofcertain values but they share a common recognition that certain values are rele-vant'' (1995: 42).Thus, rather than assess the extent towhich policework is demo-cratic'or not, the analytical task is to examine the nature of the claim to be doingthings democratically', and look for the means by which such claims are made. Putanother way, Baldwin's notion of a discourse of justi¢cation' bears a strong a¤-nity with Giddens concept of discursive consciousnessÐ` what actors are able to say,or to give verbal expression to, about social conditions, including especially thecondition of their own action; awareness which has a discursive form'' (Giddens1984: 374). To understand democratic relations, therefore, attention should beplaced on the way in which police o¤cers invoke certain democratic values toaccount for', or supply reasons for'particular actions.Focussing on Baldwin's discourses of justi¢cation' (or Giddens'discursive con-

sciousness), as a way of understanding how police o¤cers reproduce policing re-lations, helps to qualify (or clarify) the belief that the (perennial) failure oflegal, organizational and democratic reform is rooted in a nebulous `police cul-ture'. Indeed, almost all commentary on police reform, whether the kind of re-form imposed through external structures (such as law, or democracy), or theinternal structures of the organization (policy, deployment, discipline, and soon), emphasizes the importance of `police culture'as a medium through which


policing relations are mediated, negotiated, ¢ltered and transformed. Indeed,in each of the sections so far discussed there have been hints of the existence of a`police culture'; for example, I have referred to McConville et al.s (1991) ideasabout the police use of ìnformal working rules', and the development of cover-ing behaviour'; the application of ìnstitutional categories' (Sheptycki 1993);the development of an ìnformal operational hierarchy' (Baldwin & Kinsey1982); the typi¢cation of people and events as `police relevant' (Grimshaw &Je¡erson 1987): all of which indicate the presence of a practical consciousness; anability to know `how to go on', a tacitly held knowledge about what it means tobe a police o¤cer, and do policework. The next section explores this practicalconsciousness.

Police Culture(s)

The concept of `police culture'originally emerged from ethnographic studies ofroutine policework, which uncovered a layer of informal occupational normsand values operating under the apparently rigid hierarchical structure of thepolice organization (Cain 1973; Manning1977,1989; Holdaway 1983).The con-cept of `police culture' is loosely de¢ned in the criminological literature. Forexample, Manning (1977: 143), simply refers to the ` core skills, cognitions anda¡ect (that de¢ne) good police work''; it includes àccepted practices, rulesand principles of conduct that are situationally applied, and generalized ratio-nales and beliefs'' (Manning 1989: 360). Reiner (1992) equates `police culture'with the `values, norms, perspectives and craft rules' that inform police con-duct. Skolnick (1966) speaks of the `working personality' of a police o¤cerÐaresponse to the danger of the task, the unpredictable and alienating nature ofthe work, the authority of the ùniform', and the pressure to be `productive'ande¤cient'. Reiner (1992:111±129) isolates certain features of `police culture' thatare related to this `working personality', including a cynical, suspicious andpes-simistic world view; isolationism coupled with a strong sense of solidarity withother o¤cers; a conservative political and moral outlook; a pragmatic, down-to-earth, anti-theoretical perspective; and a machismo and racist attitude. Re-iner goes on to emphasize the political and ideological function of cop culture':he argues, ` this culture both re£ects and perpetuates the power di¡erenceswithin the social structure it polices.The police o¤cer is a microcosmicmedia-tor of the relations of power in a society'' (1992:109). Holdaway makes a similarpoint; he sees `police culture'as:

. . . a residual core of beliefs and values, of associated strategies and tacticsrelevant to policing, (which) remains a principal guide for the day-to-daywork of the rank-and-¢le o¤cer.This core of police workÐthe occupationalculture'Ðis what the o¤cers of Hilton would call common sense. All the re-sources of policingÐthe law, force policy and managerial instructionsÐarere¢ned and reworked in this crucible (1983: 2).

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Police culture, though, is also seen to be functional to the survival of police o¤-cers in anoccupationwhich is demanding, stressful and at times, very precarious.As Goldsmith explains, the bond of solidarity between o¤cers ò¡ers its mem-bers reassurance that the other o¤cers will `pull their weight' in police work, thatthey will defend, back up andassist their colleagueswhen confrontedby externalthreats, and that they will maintain secrecy in the face of external investigations''(1990: 93±94). Being a member of this cultural world provides ontological securityand social identity for police o¤cers, and perceiving others as cultural allies fostersa sense of trustÐ and these qualities constitute the unconscious motivation in-forming cultural knowledgeability, or in Giddens' terms, practical consciousness.There are, however, di¤culties in accepting the conventional view of `police cul-ture'and `police cultural knowledge'as depicted above.Thus, its re-de¢nition aspractical consciousness is not straightforward, and such amovewould depend ontheextent to which these limitations were overcome by the substitution of one con-cept for another.

Chan (1996) raises four main criticisms of existing formulations of `police cul-ture': that too little attention is paid to the possibility of internal di¡erentiationand jurisdictional di¡erences; there is a general failure to consider the accultura-tion process through which police o¤cers are socialized into the occupationalculture; too often cop culture' is conceptualized in isolationof the social, politicaland environmental context of policing; and ¢nally, these tendencies combine tofrustrate ideas about the nature of cultural change and transformation.

Chan (1996) citing Reiss-Ianni and Ianni (1983), points out that what is oftenbeing described as the police occupational culture, in fact, refers to the street copculture', rather than the `management cop culture'. Manning (1993) has recentlysuggested that there are three subcultures of policing': command, middle man-agement, and lower participants. Cain (1973) noted distinctions between ruraland city policing, a point which was later con¢rmed by Shapland and Vagg(1988); while Chan (1992) detected cultural di¡erences between o¤cers holdingdi¡erent functional responsibilities. Albeit in separate studies, ethnographershave identi¢ed di¡erent cultures'and cultural identities'at work in di¡erent po-licing jurisdictions. For example, Bittner's (1967) classic study of `policing on skidrow'talks of careful craftsmen'who are distinguishedby their rich, local geogra-phical and historical knowledge of the area they police, while Punch's (1979,1985)ethnography of policing in the Amsterdam redlight district describes o¤cers asasphalt cowboys'and ùniform carriers'. These di¡erent roles, Punch argues, il-lustrate that `police o¤cers' values and behaviour are ultimately shaped by theunique area they police (1979:19).There is, then, good ground to doubt the exis-tence of an homogenous, universal and monolithic cultural ¢eld.

Fielding (1994) suggests that these di¡erent milieux pose very di¡erent stylesof policing as well as variability in cultural orientation; this involves, therefore,the construction and maintenance of diverse and competing policing identities(for example, as a tra¤c o¤cer, a detective, a community constable, a custodysergeant, a non-operational inspector, and so on); these ìdentities', and the


ontological security they provide, may not only vary over time but may also vary intheir hold on individual o¤cers. Fielding goes on to remind us of the `de¢nitionalcontingency of `reading'police action'' (1994: 55); and further stresses the impor-tance of attending to the situational dynamics of policework. Since the unique-ness of each situation `bring(s) the culture's di¡erent, sometimes contradictoryelements into and out of prominence', (Fielding1994: 52), it is simply inappropri-ate to talk of a singular `police culture', but rather of a multiplicity of cultures'and `policing identities'which are situationally de¢ned.

From this perspective, the idea of an all-powerful cop culture' (or practical con-sciousness) which determines police behaviour in every instance canbe discarded.This is Chan's secondpoint, namely that ` while the culturemaybe powerful, it isnevertheless up to individuals to accommodate or resist its in£uence'' (1996:111).This moves us away from the view that o¤cers are `passive or manipulated lear-ners' (Reiner1992:109), but are active andcreative in the reproduction of culturalrelations. Chan also brings attention to Fielding's (1988) earlier work on policetraining and the acculturation processes that this involves. In this work, Fieldingdemonstrated that the individual o¤cer is the `¢nal arbiter or mediator' of thestructural and cultural in£uences of the occupation (1988: 10, cited in Chan1996:111). He states:

One cannot read the recruit as a cipher for the occupational culture. Theoccupational culture has to make its pitch for support, just as the agencies ofthe formal organization exert their in£uence through control of resources.The stock stories of the occupational culture may be e¡ective as a meansof ordering perceptions which maximizes desirable outcomes. If theycontradict the recruit's gathering experience they are likely to be dismissed(ibid.:135,op cit.:113).

It is further argued that the existence of cultural di¡erence'allows the collectiv-ity of police o¤cers to di¡erentiate between members (Fielding1994: 52).Holda-way's (1983) ethnographic research, for example, shows how deviations from thedominant cultural style'canbecome the subject of narratives, jokes and repartee,which highlight the excesses or apparent weaknesses of collegaues: for Holdaway,the presence of cultural diversity, as expressed in the informal accounts of fellowo¤cers:

marks out the boundaries of the occupational culture and so places the con-stable within the broad and vivid context of police work as his colleaguesthink it should be performed (1983:143).

Burke's (1993) research into the experience of lesbian and gay o¤cers seems tosuggest that acceptance of di¡erence' (in this case sexual di¡erence), dependson the ability of the cultural deviant' to none the less get the job done'.

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The implication here is that the tensionbetween the cultural values associatedwith di¡erent identities and cultural positions, and the demands of theoccupation, is chie£y marked by the accommodation of the former to the latter.Fielding has pointed out how, in policing discourse, the `job' is depicted as an en-tity, and it would be easy to ` treat unswerving adherence to the cultural beliefsystem as the sine qua non of organizational membership'' (1994: 51±52). But as Bur-ke's (1993) study shows, di¡erent cultural values andpolicing identities areadmis-sible so longas occupational performance' is not a¡ected.Thekey here, then, is topayattention to theway inwhich cultural diversity, rather thanculturalmember-ship (which implies homogeneity), is expressed in the activity of policework andis oriented towards the demands of the occupational task.

Chan's third criticism of police culture as generally formulated, is its apparentinsularity from the social, political, legal, environmental and organizationalcontext of policing. In part, this re£ects the dominance of the ethnographic tra-dition of cop culture'studies, which employ a level of analysis that does not movebeyond the organization to its environing structures' (Cain, 1979). Moreover,Cain argues, these analyses have been epistemologically and methodologicallyill-equipped to accomplish this analytical task. If, following Giddens, structures'are produced and reproduced in and through the activities of everyday policing,then they are also implicated in, and worked out in o¤cers' knowledgeabilityÐtheir practical and discursive consciousness. A more pro¢table starting point for un-derstanding the culture/structure relationship, then, would be to examine thecultural values' of o¤cers as an expression of their position in legal, organiza-tional and democratic relations; how, from that position, they resolve the tensioninherent in the co-presence of di¡erent ( structural') responsibilities and tasks;and how their resolution of structural' contradiction(s) accomplishes very dif-ferent, perhaps competing, cultural identities. Chan (1996:112), citing Manning(1993), sums this up well: ` the tensions apparent in the occupational culture gen-erally and between the organization and the environment are the dialecticsource of change in policing''.Without such an insight,`police culture' is accordeda resistant, reform-proof quality and the scope for cultural change and diversityremains limited. Indeed, conventional ideas about the problematic nature of re-form is invariably explainedby the omnipresence and resilience of an`underlyingpolice culture', which is seen as the Berlin wall of policing' (Savage 1991).This isprecisely Chan's ¢nal criticism of existing conceptualizations inwhich she arguesthat `a satisfactory formulation of police culture should allow for the possibilityof change as well as resistance to change'' (1996:112).

Given this overview of `police culture', and the limitations of reading it as auniversal, monolithic and homogenous social entity', the value of its re-concep-tualization as practical consciousness stands out in sharp relief.Thus,`police culturalknowledge' can be positioned within, and can enjoy' all the conceptual advan-tages of the wider framework of structuration theory. As a crucially importantelement of police o¤cers' knowledgeability, practical consciousness is necessarilylinked to the theoretical perspective which cannot only grapple with the


spatialization of police culture(s), but can also account for the existence ofmulti-ple culture(s); recognize the interplay of cultural identities and di¡erentoccupational roles and responsibilities; appreciate the interpretive and creativeaspects of culture, situate cultural practice in the legal, organizational and demo-cratic context of policing; acknowledge the importance of cultural knowledge' inthe resolution of structural contradictions'and `unintended consequences'; andprovide a theory of cultural change as well as transformation in policingrelations.

None the less, if we straightforwardly substitute police cultural knowledgefor practical consciousness, we ¢nd little guidance from Giddens as to the formssuch consciousness might take. This contrasts, for example, with his notion ofdiscursive consciousness, which has a more objective' form in as far as actors ac-count for their activities inwritten and oralways. For this reason, Iam indebtedto Chan (1996) for bringing attention to Sackmann's (1991) account of culturalknowledge'. Her cognitive model encompasses all forms of shared organiza-tional knowledge: ` the form of things that people have in their minds; theirmodels for perceiving, integrating, and interpreting them; the ideas or theoriesthat they use collectively to make sense of their social and physical reality''(ibid.: 21). She classi¢es cultural knowledge in organizations into four dimen-sions: dictionary knowledge, which provides de¢nitions and labels of things andevents within an organizations; directory knowledge, which contains descriptionsabout `how things are done'generally in the organization; recipe knowledge,whichprescribes what should be done or should not be done in speci¢c situations; andaxiomatic knowledge, which represents the fundamental assumptions about `whythings are done the way they are'. Chan (1996:112) argues that Sackmann's for-mulation `leaves a number of questions unanswered': principally, the modelignores the links between knowledge and action, and knowledge and policingrelations.While Iagreewith Chan, these limitations do not apply if Sackmann'sperspective is used within a structurationist approach.

Discretionary Behaviour as Strategic Conduct

In the preceding sections I have explored the structural world of policingthrough the lens of Giddens' structuration theory. In this process, I have consid-ered `law', organization'and democracy'as empirically given structures'of rou-tine police work. In presenting an analysis of each of these structures', I have`brought to life' the main tenets of a structurationist approach. In the section on`law', for example, I have shown how structure; can be enabling and permissive;how it provides a language of communication and signi¢cation of legally rele-vant incidents; and how it establishes norms which allow police o¤cers to accord`people' and things' various measures of legitimacy. In the following section, Iused the structure'of organization to illustrate Giddens' ideas on structural con-tradictions and transformative behaviour; and the way in which the `unintended

98 E. Campbell

consequences'of organizational reform create the`unacknowledged conditions offurther action'. In democracy', I brought to the fore the notion of discursive con-sciousness, arguing that police o¤cers can justify their action according tocertain commonly shared and recognizable criteria or values. In addition, whileit was tempting to see structures of accountability', such as the complaints systemor community consultation, as democratic structures', I suggested that theseprocesses and activities were better seen as `modalities' which mediate betweenstructure' and action. More importantly, throughout this discussion therecursive nature of agency/structure has been stressed and elaborated, notinghow policing relations are reproduced and/or transformed in everyday policingactivities andbehaviour. Inbringing the focus around to the question of what thepolice actually do, I outlined the importance of identifying their practical under-standings of their actionsÐtheir practical consciousness. By equating this con-cept with a reconstructed formulation of `police culture(s)', and introducingSackmann's ideas on forms of cultural knowledge, the potential for constructinga theoretical understanding of any form of policing practice based on structura-tionist principles is con¢rmed. In Giddens' terms, police discretion, and otherstreet-level discretionary behaviour can be usefully re-conceptualized as strate-gic action' (or strategic conduct').

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Michael Hill for his valuable comments andeditorial help on earlier drafts of this article; and his special encouragement tocontinue to develop the ideas contained within it.

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