Policing Human Rights
Law, Narratives, and Practice
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:10th Jun '21
Should be back in stock very soon
Human rights go to the heart of policing in democratic societies. Across the world, police are now governed by human rights principles and increasingly detailed standards - from arrest and detention to the regulation of protest and the use of lethal force. Yet there has been remarkably limited research examining human rights as a central feature of contemporary police reform, rhetoric and regulation. Policing Human Rights breaks new ground by offering one of the first sociologically inspired and empirically grounded accounts of how officers encounter and experience human rights law in their everyday work. The substantive insights and associated arguments of the book are based on unprecedented fieldwork with Police Service of Northern Ireland, including interviews and focus groups with over one hundred police officers, from over twenty police stations and five departments. Adopting an interdisciplinary style of analysis that draws on sociology, anthropology and organizational studies, the book takes the reader on a tour of four sites of policing to expose how and why human rights law comes to be socially constituted, organizationally conditioned and routinely interpreted and applied by police officers. The book offers an insight into the function of human rights law in modern policing, exposing the visions and values police officers' express in their daily narratives, sensemaking and practices.
Martin takes the reader "on a tour of four sites of policing to learn how and why human rights law comes to be socially constituted, organizationally conditioned and routinely interpreted and applied by police officers." * Law & Social Inquiry *
It is rare to come across a book that tells you, in detail, how to do your job to the very highest standards; not just a recipe for me but for senior officers in the PSNI and, perhaps, for others in policing in the rest of the UK and beyond... An excellent and very imaginative contribution to understanding how police officers consider human rights "on the job" and what factors affect their approach and their judgments. * John Wadham, Doughty Street Chambers and Human Rights Advisor to the Northern Ireland Policing Board (European Human Rights Law Review, 2022, Issue 3.) *
Policing Human Rights is distinctive and innovative as the first significant law in policing work which takes account of the human rights environment. Dr Martin shows how police officers make sense of their human rights obligations and how the policing environment has been radically altered by these normative requirements. His contribution is not just to criminal justice but to public law much more generally. He has the eye and ear of an outstanding qualitative researcher. His combination of legal and sociological contextual skills place Policing Human Rights in a different league from the work of others. It will become a standard reference on law in policing. * Professor David Dixon, University of New South Wales *
- Winner of Runner Up, Inner Temple New Author's Book Prize Shortlisted, 2022 Peter Birks Prizes for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, The Society of Legal Scholars Shortlisted, The Hart SLSA Prize for Early Career Academics, Socio-Legal Studies Association.
ISBN: 9780198855125
Dimensions: 222mm x 192mm x 28mm
Weight: 642g
448 pages