ABSTRACT
Social science, legal and behavioural science analyses of routine police/public encounters have proposed several broad mechanisms to account for the course of police/public interaction. There is a fruitful analytic distinction to be made between formal and informal aspects of organisation. The fact that formal models do not square with what members actually do has led to descriptions of the informal organisation as a patchwork of unofficial work practices and norms. Van Maanen’s terms for the stages of organisational socialisation are respectively ‘choice’, ‘introduction’, ‘encounter’ and ‘metamorphosis’, and it is important that the last stage is concerned with ‘continuance’ rather than the achievement of some end-state. Constraints on one’s ability to understand police/public encounters either from the perspective of formal organisation, legal reality, police personality or occupational culture have been indicated. Officers also become aware that the cooperation of the public cannot be assumed but depends on the officer’s personal qualities, the character of local law enforcement and so on.
