Research
My main research interests are in public administration, including policy making and delivery. This is informed by my past as a civil servant but also as a volunteer in community organisations. My research has included work on social security, social care, health services, housing and on community regeneration. Recently, I have been focused on policing in a multi-disciplinary team, including a lawyer and a criminologist. My work is broadly interpretive and, wherever possible, ethnographic, focusing on the work of street-level bureaucrats and their interactions with clients.
Police Discretion: an ethnographic study
My main research interest at present is in policing. With colleagues, I have conducted a six-year (2013-2019) ethnographic study of the use of discretion by front line officers. This arose out of on-going concerns about the use of stop and search powers but embraces all aspects of discretion. We observed officers in three police forces and have published work on the craft of policing, police culture, the use of body-worn cameras, discretion in decisions to arrest and other topics. The work has led to the establishment of a European network, funded by EU COST, on Police Stops, of which I was the Vice Chair. Further information is available at: https://www.polstops.eu/. More recently, aspects of the research have been picked up by practitioners, including the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
Street-level Bureaucracy
Much of my research in public administration is informed by the work of Michael Lipsky on street-level bureaucracy. I am keen to explore the application of these ideas to public services, broadly understood, and in the changing context where, for example, AI and other advances alter the interactions between citizens and the state. I am currently engaged in preparing a book on these ideas for the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods which will be published in 2025.
Ethnographic Methodologies
With colleagues from Denmark and Switzerland, I am engaged in a project exploring the meaning of those long periods of inactivity in the field that we experience as ethnographers. In particular, by focusing on activities and points of interest, we miss the significance of the silences and the work being done when there is nothing apparent to observe. This work has been supported by the Independent Social Research Foundation and will, we hope, culminate in a book on the topic.
Research groups
Research grants
Observing, theorizing and coping with 'nothing' in ethnographic field work
INDEPENDENT SOCIAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION (UK)
April 2022 - March 2023
Every ticket is a story: Piloting a “whole story” approach to understanding ethnic disproportionality in FPNs issued for breaching coronavirus restrictions
N8 POLICING RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP (UK)
October 2020 - October 2021
Research collaborations
Professor Geoff Pearson
Police Discretion
University of Manchester
On-going collaboration on an ethnographic study of policing.
Dr Liz Turner
Police Discretion
On-going collaboration on an ethnographic study of policing
Professor Sofie de Kimpe
Stop and Search Across Europe
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Development of a research network
Professor Bagga Bjerge
Ethnographic Research into Public Sector Reforms; Everyday Lives of Drug Users; and Situational (un)safety: Public spaces, marginalized groups and feelings of safety
Aarhus University
Research network
Professor Tobias Eule
Nothing in ethnographic research
University of Bern
Writing collaboration.