Final published version
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Thinking About Police Misconduct, Harm and Chronic Embitterment
AU - McDaniel, John L.M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.
PY - 2025/3/15
Y1 - 2025/3/15
N2 - The chapter focuses on the police misconduct system in England and Wales. It sets out how the police misconduct system is harmful, generating significant degrees of human suffering. Participants can experience relatively normal feelings of fear, frustration and anxiety once an allegation of misconduct is made, but the misconduct system itself creates its own kinds of harm. Participants in misconduct processes can be left feeling humiliated (including feeling embarrassed or ashamed when a process makes them appear stupid for doing something or complaining), unsupported, ostracised, betrayed, helpless and hopeless. They can be left with a sense of injustice or even a loss of self-respect over their treatment. It can affect their everyday lives, quality of life and worldview. Harms generated within the police misconduct system appear to affect accused officers, complainants, whistleblowers, witnesses and their families (including their children). Officers with protected characteristics can be disproportionately affected. This chapter considers how police forces could start seriously searching for and measuring some of the harms caused by their internal police misconduct structures and processes. It focuses in particular on the emerging concept of chronic embitterment as a means to capture, recognise and potentially treat some forms of human suffering caused by police forces’ organisational systems.
AB - The chapter focuses on the police misconduct system in England and Wales. It sets out how the police misconduct system is harmful, generating significant degrees of human suffering. Participants can experience relatively normal feelings of fear, frustration and anxiety once an allegation of misconduct is made, but the misconduct system itself creates its own kinds of harm. Participants in misconduct processes can be left feeling humiliated (including feeling embarrassed or ashamed when a process makes them appear stupid for doing something or complaining), unsupported, ostracised, betrayed, helpless and hopeless. They can be left with a sense of injustice or even a loss of self-respect over their treatment. It can affect their everyday lives, quality of life and worldview. Harms generated within the police misconduct system appear to affect accused officers, complainants, whistleblowers, witnesses and their families (including their children). Officers with protected characteristics can be disproportionately affected. This chapter considers how police forces could start seriously searching for and measuring some of the harms caused by their internal police misconduct structures and processes. It focuses in particular on the emerging concept of chronic embitterment as a means to capture, recognise and potentially treat some forms of human suffering caused by police forces’ organisational systems.
KW - Accountability
KW - Chronic embitterment
KW - Mental health
KW - Police harm
KW - Police misconduct
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-83390-8_11
DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-83390-8_11
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:105001118995
SN - 9783031833892
T3 - Critical Criminological Perspectives
SP - 231
EP - 260
BT - Mental Health, Crime and Justice
A2 - Weston, Samantha
A2 - Trebilcock, Julie
PB - Palgrave Macmillan
CY - Cham
ER -