Policed ethnography

Perhaps with only the exception of Simon Holdaway, covert research of the police has not been achievable for academic researchers. However, researchers of the policed can find themselves in a position where they are observing officers who may not be the primary target of the research, who may not be aware they are under academic scrutiny and have not provided any form of informed consent. The nature of police work is defined by interactions between officers and agents of other organisations, and those who are the targets of police attention: suspects, victims, and other members of the public. It has never been sufficient in the academic field of policing to focus exclusively on the officers themselves and researching the policed is an important but often overlooked feature. In contrast to many ‘low visibility’ aspects of police work, public order policing is highly visible to outsiders and attracts significant scrutiny of all actors. We argue that by choosing to focus primarily on the policed rather than the police, interactions between police and members of the public become observable even where researchers have not negotiated direct access to the police themselves. This chapter draws upon the experiences of the authors in their research among crowds of political protesters and ‘risk’ football supporters to draw out some of the ethical and practical problems and benefits associated with researching those who are regularly and sometimes controversially policed.