Professionalising the police : problems and possibilities

McCanney, John Joseph and Morris, Karen and Corrie, Ian and Bates, Elizabeth (2025) Professionalising the police : problems and possibilities. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

The College of Policing created the Police Education and Qualifications Framework as a national framework for training police officers and staff. In 2020 it mandated that police recruits must be educated to degree level. This is part of a wider professionalisation agenda which aims to gain the police recognised professional status. While this has generated debate on the relationship between the police and academia, and the necessity for officers to be educated to degree level. There has been little discussion of any parallel need for organisational change within policing to accommodate this fundamental innovation. This thesis considers the nature and extent of the organisational changes needed to meet the demands of professional practice, including the utilisation of the skills and knowledge of graduate recruits, the development and adoption of evidence-based practice, and the creation of a code of ethics. The primary research was conducted in three phases each designed to address an aspect of the professionalisation process. The initial phase explored the existing policing milieu to assess its compatibility with professional practice. The second phase covered the influence, on student officers, of studying a graduate programme and their perception of professional policing. While the final phase explored student officers experience of operational policing and to what extent their education influenced the performance of their duties. This research resulted in the publication of four academic articles in peer-reviewed journals. Three of these articles covered each phase of research, while a fourth covered pragmatic philosophy both as the conceptual basis for this research and as a potential framework for research in policing and for guiding policing practice. The thesis goes on to provide suggestions for changes to police perceptions and practices to facilitate the adoption of the profession traits that would validate the police’s claim to professional recognition.