NCJ Number
70998
Journal
Urban Life Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (April 1980) Pages: 79-100
Date Published
1980
Length
22 pages
Annotation
The spatial design of an English police station is described and then used as the conceptual framework for discussing the organization and presentation of police self-imagery.
Abstract
The analysis is informed by Goffman's (1969) dramaturgical perspective, in which he uses the theatrical metaphor to discuss organizational dynamics. Goffman argues that persons working in organizations present themselves as representatives of an idealized order. The order is managed as a 'front,' or idealization, is very different from the 'back' region, where the real practice of the organization takes place. In the case of a police organization, the station is the 'home-territory' where the techniques of the occupational culture are used with maximum freedom. The legal power to detain suspects at the station provides the opportunity for the exercise of informal occupational techniques of interrogation to be used beyond formal legal boundaries. The station office is the 'front' or public area where the appearance of legality and professionalism is presented. The station, however, houses private areas, such as the charge room and the cells, where the 'back' region practices of policing are used. Here the practices of lower ranking officers are shielded not only from the public but also from their superiors. In many cases, supervisory personnel consciously avoid intrusion into the private spaces where the informal and questionable techniques of policing are practiced. As spatial areas within the police station become increasingly private, so the occupational culture of policing is sustained and strengthened.