Institutional complexity and contestation in a local policing collaboration tackling exploitation

Abstract

Policing in England and Wales is struggling to adapt to meet the modern challenges faced by our communities. Policing culture is often seen as part of the problem, contributing to an ongoing ‘permacrisis’. This case study of a local multi-agency partnership addressing exploitation adopts a critical realist philosophy to the entrenched perspectives of police and partners on the frontline of public services. Considering the national recognition of increasing workloads related to vulnerability and the need for more collaborative working arrangements, this case study offers insight into the institutional complexity of everyday multi-agency community safety work. An insider-researcher employs thematic analysis of partners' interview data to identify three core institutional logics, revealing that tension exists within local police as much as between police and partners. A dominant cultural stance founded on the logics of managerialism and criminal justice is uncovered, underpinning sense-making and framing practices that prioritise efficiency through specialisation and simplistic victim-offender dichotomies. The implicit theories and mental schemata within these logics impede meaningful system-wide efforts to protect some of society’s most vulnerable. Further exploration indicates that an institutional tendency towards clarity, directness, and simplicity underpins both logics, which hinders the capacity to address increasingly complex issues such as exploitation. However, a strategic logic is also observed in use by officers and partners, which, based on a broader view of the police role in society, is equipped with a wider range of mental frameworks to understand complex problems. This naturally leads to valuing a greater variety of options and responses as part of an extended, systemic mental model of public protection. Being subordinate to the dominant logics in a centralised bureaucracy, its practice is hindered and thus its impact limited; nevertheless, it holds promise as a model for policing to address the challenges of modernity better. The institutional logics and complexity approach helps shift the discourse around police reform away from simplistic discussions of values, standards, or leadership towards a deeper understanding of the institutionalised nature of police practice, and why it has proved so resistant to change.