Ethnography and the evidence-informed police practitioner

The central theme of the chapter is the similarities between ethnography and policework. Several similarities are highlighted. The core similarity concerns ethnographic fieldwork and police investigation, casting the latter inclusively so that it includes not only the work of the detective but police practice more generally. Similarities between the two fields emerge along the way, including matters of competence and craft, knowledge, and experience. Acknowledging that policing seems poised on the brink of substantial change in Western societies, not least to meet the changing expectations of the public, the chapter also directs its analysis to where we may find ourselves in a near future where contemporary efforts to bring about ‘evidence-based policing’ have matured.