ABSTRACT
Whilst a tremendous amount of time and effort has been spent by academics undertaking research into police culture, we rarely reflect on those factors that shape the form and remit of such studies. It is perhaps helpful therefore to acknowledge the ways in which police research has gone through different stages, historically, which reflect different academic and policy considerations and that these have impacted upon our knowledge of police culture. A related issue concerns the purpose of policing research and the extent to which its focus and orientation are to understand policing at a cultural level or to develop ways of dealing with culturally determined police issues. This is a subtle distinction yet one which leads to a diversity of research projects and methodologies which will have widely varying outcomes. Finally, this chapter will highlight some of the definitional, methodological and analytical challenges of police culture research prior to discussing a broader set of orientations within which to conduct research into police culture.
