Policing Ethically

At a time when much in UK policing is the subject of intense public and media scrutiny, there prevails a practitioner discourse about policing ethically that is ongoing formally in police ethics committee discussions, and probably informally in station offices, canteens, classrooms, and police vehicles. Since January 2024, these conversations have added emphasis with the publication of the College of Policing’s revised Code of Ethics with which policing practitioners in England and Wales are coming to grips. This book explores thinking about policing ethically for those who have to use and implement the ideas – to those who, when law and policy is silent on the matter before them, nevertheless have to make a justifiable decision and act upon it.

Applicable to policing generally, not just to the UK, Part 1 of this book presents conceptual contextualization for thinking about policing ethically. Following which, Part 2 considers practical implications of policing ethically.
Some of the key topics that the book covers are as follows:

• Discussions of managing power and vulnerability
• Implementing frontline ethics in practice
• The process of making ethically informed decisions
• Considerations around ethics and the use of artificial intelligence by policing practitioners
• Prerequisites to ethical leadership
• Considering “public interest” in relation to policing ethically
• Risk management as a moral obligation

Drawing upon the policing practitioner and policymaking experience of the authors, this book will be of interest and use to all those involved in delivering policing: constables of all ranks (student, probationary, and experienced), policing community support officers, professional support staff, policing ethics committee members, and policymakers. The book is also a contribution to the wider academic literature on policing and ethics, and will be of interest not only to policing ethicists and ethnographers but also to students and policymakers in the fields of criminology, sociology, and governance.

Clive Harfield, before taking up an academic career, served for twenty years in various UK police organizations in local, national, and transnational policing roles. As an associate professor he has taught and researched at the University of Wollongong, NSW (criminal law, transnational crime prevention); the University of the Sunshine Coast, Qld (cybersecurity and cyberinvestigation ethics); the Australian Catholic University (criminology and criminal justice); and he has been an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland (law). In designing and delivering criminal justice sector capacitybuilding support for law enforcement practitioners and policymakers, he has worked in Bangladesh (counterterrorist financing) and Papua New Guinea (anti-corruption and organizational integrity), funded by Australian federal government foreign aid programs. In the police education and research arena, he has undertaken the roles of Visiting Lecturer at the Police University College, Norway; International Visiting Fellow at Bath Spa University, UK; and Fulbright Research Fellow at Georgetown University, Washington DC (USA).

Allyson Macvean’s distinguished career began in the Serious and Organized Crime Unit of the Home Office, from where she moved into academia, establishing the John Grieve Centre for Policing and Community Safety at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College (now Buckinghamshire Chilterns University). As Professor of Policing and Criminology, and Co-Director of Bath Spa University’s Centre for Leadership, Ethics, and Professional Practice, Professor Emeritus Macvean worked closely with the Royal Marines to help re-establish ethical culture and ethics training; work which, in turn, led to her being commissioned to review ethical climate, ethical awareness, and ethical leadership across the five fighting arms of the Naval Service. She has been instrumental in the establishment of police ethics committees in England, Wales, and Scotland, and was a founding member of the UK Police Ethics group (now the UK Police National Ethics Committee). In 2019, for her services to ethical leadership and ethical policing, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire.