Structure: highly autonomous structure

Given the foregoing ambiguity, contingency and limitation that conditioned policing practices, it was ‘impossible to replicate’ (officer 19) the paradigmatic performance established in the police academy on any occasion, or directly employ the procedures demonstrated by PDU tutors in that very context. As shared amongst operational police officers, very rarely was the resolution to problems at the frontline readily and squarely informed by written rules, others’ or one’s own experience (cf. Gordon et al., 2009). Rather, a mix of improvisational and referential agency was normally called for in problem solving (Fielding, 1984; Goffman, 1959). Also, as Waddington (1999) contends drawing on a substantial array of policing studies, operational conduct is generally guided more by ‘context-specific strategies’ (293), rather than by a pre-established model, or a ‘culture’ that was assumed by the public to prevail in the broad category of police. The recruits, therefore, were compelled to keep any earlier obtained overarching discourses open for interpretation and adaptation in specific situations.

Consequently, when adapting to a situation-contingent working pattern immediately after the procedure-following discursive context, some recruits could be stricken with a feeling of insecurity as they regarded improvisational decisions as ‘expedient’ solutions. They found it hard to accept, especially at the beginning of a shift, that a lot of solutions were produced somewhat spontaneously, rather than based on pre-tested, systematic references, and therefore did not guarantee any positive outcome.

‘A lot of the policing is about common sense. You are always left with a decision to make, where I’m supposed to try to do the right things. And there is no one to ask, and there is no law that necessarily fits up to the situation. So, it’s just, beating on your feet, and just going for it. And it might work out, it might not.’ (Officer 08)

Furthermore, as indicated by the above excerpt, common sense, i.e. experience and knowledge derived from normal social life, was an imperative aspect of operational policing, in that it could backup recruits when they encountered situations that did not find match in their archive of professional experiences (Fielding, 1984). More profoundly, the wide recognition and appreciation of ‘common sense’ in the operation policing sector gave reassurance to officers because, palliative as they might be, the decisions made out of common sense were still based on individuals’ shrewd and valuable personal knowledge in the background (Van Maanen, 2010). Therefore, recruits’ private, unique and autobiographic life experiences, values and knowledge became incorporated into the daily policing practices, as an integral part of the core competence. In this way, agency was accentuated and enacted to a much greater extent than in the earlier stages.

For this reason, behavioural mandates espoused in formal training and models imparted from mentors on shifts were broadly diluted over time as individual improvisation and discretion was frequently activated. While before, certainty and legitimacy of acts was generally generated from conformity to formal guidelines or experienced exports’ instructions, in operational policing, recruits obtained assurance mostly from their own progressive iteration between learning from experience and enacting accumulated common sense to address the issues they faced.

The researcher: ‘Do you do your job modelling after senior officers?’ Officer 11: ‘Generally no. Because I am driving (i.e., single-crewed) now, so I am a lot on my own, so you have to use your own judgement a lot more. And obviously before that I was always with someone. I used to use my own judgement and talked to him when he was there. Just to make sure that you are doing the right things. But now I think I have got my own judgement as to how to deal with things. You just do what you can deal with the things in front of you the best you can.’

Besides, the substantial job discretion to which police officers were entitled was manifested at two levels. Firstly, most routines were conducted and decision were made in the ‘field’ and outside of stations, thus distant from ‘in-house’ managers, who accordingly tended to ‘minimise interference’ in management (Fielding, 1984: 575; Van Maanen, 2010: 125). This substantial autonomy under the disguise of bureaucratic management is labelled by Van Maanen (2010: 125) as ‘a façade of organizational control’. This explains what was observed in the practical sector that police constables were normally left to work in their own manner, and being asked to speak with a sergeant normally signalled that one had done something seriously wrong (Van Maanen, 1973).

The researcher: ‘Does your sergeant debrief your jobs?’

Officer 05: ‘No. He’ll tell you if you have done something very wrong... I just keep going. I don’t really speak to my sergeant, if I can avoid it... But if it is investigation, or anything moody, or something I don’t know what to do, I will speak with him. If it is not going anywhere, it is rubbish, and you need to file it, you can speak with them. But once your job is finished as well, you can ask for reviewing as well. But it’s up to you. It is entirely self-managed. But they have overall a managerial role.’

Secondly, the high demand of agency in this job, such as using power subtly in engaging with the public, deriving context-specific stratagems and enacting creative impromptus (Muir, 1977), inevitably granted officers a sense of authority, ownership, dignity and identity in their work, for which Manning (2008: 689) notes the self- definition as ‘entrepreneurs’ among police officers in a drug policing department. For this reason, individual-directed job performance constituted the autonomy that was respected by peers and supervisors within the police community (Fielding, 1984; Manning, 2008; Van Maanen, 2010). In the operation policing sector, overlooking or allowing officers’ agency-laden but slightly rule-breaching practices was often taken as recognition of constables’ competence and work ethics, and therefore employed by sergeants as an ‘incentive’ (Anteby, 2008) for constables that won their commitment (Van Maanen, 2010: 126-132).

‘My sergeant is very good. She is not my crew manager. But she stands back and she gets on with things... When I have a problem, I will go and talk to

her about it… Otherwise she trusts officers to deal with things themselves. She will very rarely come and ask what you are doing.’ (Officer 08)

In short, the loose supervision in practical policing domain vitally removed up- down institutionalising forces, and the forgiving, even encouraging, attitude towards personalised conducts alleviated new starters’ anxiety of slightly breaching written rules or norms.

4.5.3 Discourses and discursive condition: micro and fragmented work-based