Police Sub-Culture

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Canteen culture has been defined as a set of values that the police develop to cope with the strain of police life. It includes values of racism, cynicism, sexism, conservatism and suspicion which will usually be discussed between police officers when on their break time. Canteen culture derives from police culture itself. Police sub-culture is often portrayed as a pervasive, malign and potent influence on the behaviour of officers (Waddington, 1999). The canteen is an arena of action separate from the street, where in contrast to the latter officers act before an audience of their peers. Their thoughts and beliefs can be influential with other officers as it will usually be groups of officers that are gathered. Police cultures in general can be summarised as accepted practices, rules and principles of conduct that are situationally applied and generalised rationales and beliefs (Manning 1989). There are various aspects of police culture which include management culture and street cop culture, canteen culture and street culture and the sub cultures – detectives, dog handlers and armed response. The idea of the canteen culture has derived from a part of police culture, where values beliefs and practices that police officers share are formed. A core piece of research ‘Police Subculture…show more content…
The report found a large number of black men on the DNA database (compared to other origins) with 30% on the system compared to 10% of white and Asian males. Furthermore, it was found that black men are still seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.The report concludes that racist police officers still exist. Also, there are still policies and practices in place that raises concerns about the affect it has on the ethnic minorities in the police and the
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