Can experience be evidence? Craft knowledge and Evidence-based policing
Can Experience be Evidence? Craft knowledge and Evidence-based policing
Published as:
Rhodes, R. A. W., and Jenny Fleming. “Can experience be evidence?: craft knowledge and evidence-based policing.” Policy & Politics (2018).
Available@: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/pap/pre-prints/content-pppolicypold1600061r3
Abstract
This article explores the debate surrounding the use of evidence in police decision making. It asks what varieties of knowledge are drawn on by the police when making decisions. Specifically, we ask what experiential knowledge is and why it is relevant to police decision-making. First, we survey briefly official government policy to show that evidence based policymaking is the dominant paradigm for the UK’s government’s policy making in general and in policing specifically. Second, we discuss the limits to social science knowledge in policymaking. Third, to move beyond the science versus experience debate, we explore the notion of experience and identify four ideas entwined with the notion of experience: occupational culture; institutional memory; local knowledge, and craft. Fourth, we use these terms to provide a thematic analysis of focus groups drawn from four UK police forces. This case study enables us to identify the varieties of knowledge the police draw on. We show that police officers weave together the several sources source of knowledge. They draw on any knowledge that helps them do their job, whether it is their craft knowledge, their assessment of the organizational and political context in which they work, or research-based knowledge. Fifth, we explore the limits to experiential knowledge. Finally, we conclude that experience is crucial to evidence-based policing because it is the key to weaving the varieties of knowledge together. We argue for a systematic approach to collating local, political and organizational knowledge with research-based evidence into a wider evidence base. We do not argue against evidence-based policing, only against an exclusive reliance on it.
Latest Revision: 2017-07-19