ABSTRACT
As we have seen from the previous chapter, discussions around police culture sometimes focus upon issues of conjecture and abstraction that, whilst stimulating both intellectually and as a means of generating new knowledge, may be less immediately helpful as a means of ‘dealing’ with police behaviour. For example, the work of Shearing and Ericson (1991) and Waddington (1999a) can be considered crucial additions to the literature of police culture, owing to their exploration of the relationship between police talk and police behaviour, yet may have seemingly little relevance to those exploring the challenges of changing police practice. This reflects, in part, the sheer breadth of work that has been produced under the banner of ‘police culture’ and which has, at different times, sought to describe, to explain or to change police attitudes and behaviour.
