Unpacking the Blue Box: Structure, Control and Education in Policing

Research addressing the relationship between Higher Education (HE) and police officers tends to fall into one of three camps. First, that which explores the relationship between police institutions and academic institutions (Weisburd and Neyroud, 2013), second, those which explore the appropriateness of the HE setting for the delivery of police-specific knowledge (McDowall and Brown, 2020), and, finally, research which investigates the impact of police higher education engagement upon police officer attributes and policing practice (Brown, 2018). Thus far, little research has discussed the impact HE has on the relationship between officers and the police organisation. This research, derived from interviews with 31 police officers who undertook in-service degrees, explores police officers’ drivers to engage with HE study and the consequent changes to their perception of their relationship with the profession. This is contrasted with the relatively unchanged structural and cultural expectations the organisation places on officers regardless of their newly acquired graduate status as reported in the extant literature (Hallenberg and Cockcroft, 2017). The discrepancy can be explained through the recent scholarship on public sector isomorphism and the police’s transformation into a hybrid organisation (Noordegraaf, 2015), as well as the competing knowledge paradigms within policing (Williams and Cockcroft, 2018). Importantly, however, the current paper takes this discussion deeper. It argues that the police’s unique role in serving not just the public but also state interests inevitably shapes and constrains the process of professionalisation, the relationship between the police and HE, and officers’ ability to use knowledge and skills gained through HE study.