The Abstract Police and Police Culture

Through drawing on the concepts of ‘hybrid professionalism’ (Nordergraaf, 2015) and ‘organisational isomorphism’ (Clarke and Newman, 1997) this conceptual paper will argue that the impact of neo-liberal ideology on the contemporary public sector has created a police organisation for which professionalism increasingly denotes generic management skills which are common across the public sector and across different police roles. In short, therefore, the paper will make the case that, in parallel with changes already identified by other academics, broader structural changes may lead to a narrower and more generic set of cultural responses within contemporary police organisations.