‘It’s a profession, it isn’t a job’: Police officers’ views on the professionalisation of policing in England

This article focuses on police officers’ views of the professionalisation of policing in England against a backdrop of government reforms to policing via establishment of the College of Policing, evidence-based policing and a period of austerity. Police officers view professionalisation as linked to: top-down government reforms; education and recruitment; the building of an evidence-base; and the ethics of policing (Peelian principles). These elements are further entangled with new public management principles, highlighting the ways in which professionalism can be used as a technology of control to discipline workers. There are tensions between the government’s top-down drive for police organisations to professionalise and officers’ bottom-up views of policing as an established profession. Data is presented from qualitative interviews with 15 police officers and staff in England.