This chapter Building the capacity of police change agents: the nexus policing project by Jennifer Wood, Jenny Fleming, and Monique Marks, focuses on the gap that both practitioners and scholars pay insufficient attention to nurturing rank-and-file police as change agents. In the study, the practitioners are the police officers who are involved in the research to discover resolutions to practical challenges. The authors use the term nexus to refer to bondage or a connection. In the context of their study, Wood, Fleming, and Marks associate different types of knowledge along with the capacity to discover new thoughts about police practice and police. The researchers focus on the void that the same parties pay less attention to building the capacity of these police as idea developers and knowledgeable personnel in forging change. The authors thus choose to focus on the Nexus Policing Project in Victoria, Austria, a police-university collaboration designed to realize new approaches of actions in the policing field. The study also discourses some of the issues related to this type of partnership. In other words, this chapter evaluates how both theories, as well as practices, can be advanced in the policing sector. The researchers thus apply the participatory action research (PAR) approach to overcome the existing traditional gap amid study and practice. The authors believe that change can only take place by encouraging new thoughts and actions. This chapter informs readers that the police culture is inevitable to change because police researchers are allowed by senior management in their respective stations to research the optimal way to ensure law enforcement services. The operational officers also spend more time in the field, figuring ways to handle daily issues they encounter on the streets. When the two parties, police researchers, and field police combine their knowledge, in-depth knowledge can be generated on policing strategies and style to outlining organizational reform. Despite the system used by the police sector to analyse issues in their field and impact change, the three researchers insist on the use of PAR to ensure effective transformation. Culture is a build-up of all practices within our surroundings. According to Bevir and Rhodes, in the study, a group of people’s beliefs forms culture. People thus tend to transform their beliefs and practices based on their environment. Human agency is the critical ingredient of evolution in policing. Since people can assume actions and norms, they can also influence change. Therefore, the authors imply that rank-and-file officers should be viewed as innovators within police institutions instead of police leaders. According to history, police have been considered to be adamant about changing thus less considerate of the societal beliefs and expectations. It has also been a challenge for academic researchers to partner with the police. However, as time changes, both the United States and the United Kingdom have started to implement evidence-based practice and policy from academic research. Australia has also followed the pursuit by involving learning centers and police organizations, thus signifying change. Regardless, there still exists patterned stereotypes along with defensive positions on both parties. The Australian National University (ANU) and Victoria Police have partnered due to the affirmative support from the Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police. They agreed to work together in identifying the issues and solutions in the policing approaches and styles. Still, the collaboration is not easy because while researchers are regarded as too theoretical, police are considered as unsympathetically irrational, unreceptive, and resistive to both questions and ideas developed by academics. In other words, there is a void in the cultural fit between external researchers and police. The researchers claim that if culture is due to everyday practice and beliefs of a given group of people, then all police officers should be regarded as change agents. Some conditions need to exist for police individuals and their organizations to influence transformation in public policing. The factors include dialogic engagement, equal partnership, and developing a surrounding that sanctions officers to access novelty and put it into practice. The Nexus Policing Project applies the PAR approach to ensure collaboration between police and academics. The method emphasizes filling the gap that exists between practice and research. The practitioners in the study acknowledged youth safety as a sector that needs more inventive understandings as well as interventions to ensure a secure delivery network. Members from the ANU with the support of local partner organizations and Victoria Police tracked the relevant agencies that influenced the youth service such as youth justice, family, community service, mental health, and education to analyse how they influenced youth safety. Surprisingly, they rarely changed programs or initiatives for addressing such issues. The police, in this case, is therefore left with the entire burden when the youth felt insecure or had risky behaviors . After researching the children; the middle-class learners, the police realized the need for collaboration with such an agency. A partnership is essential to understand the perspective and ideas of such agencies. The practitioners also realized the need for further studies in leadership and management education to obtain knowledge and skills in capacity building, as well as influence other police. Since the existing notion of police being sceptical of academics despite being involved in such projects, both parties need to outline their communication methods and work plan to get along. The police solely depend on hierarchical leadership style; hence innovation at an individual level remains a challenge. The pragmatistic nature of police does not give them room for trying out new ideas. They believe in applying the tactics that they have proven to work.
Conclusion
Even though surroundings influence people’s culture, the police do not respond to practices within their environment. For change to be effective in the police force, it must occur at both top and bottom level. The researchers conclude that even though they have collaborated well with Victoria Police, they and other academics should not expect the same to go on suppose the organizations gets a new leader. The same should not be scheduled for other police organizations because leadership strategies vary. Constant disagreements are also inevitable when conducting, such as study. However, the police need to work with other local organizations to identify safety concerns and views.
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References
Wood, J., Fleming, J., & Marks, M. (2008). Building the capacity of police change agents: The nexus policing project. Policing & society , 18 (1), 72-87.
