By way of introduction, I am a serving detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police Service and am currently elected to the National Board of PFEW. I hold portfolios on leadership, culture and workloads. I am also deputy secretary of the Police Federation National Detective Forum and a non-executive director at the College of Policing. The following blog concerns my dissertation, Canteens to Keyboards that I wrote in part fulfilment of my degree in MSc Leadership of Policing at the University of Staffordshire. I am currently studying towards a PhD looking at how fractious leadership has impacted on police culture.

When I set out to write my dissertation, Canteens to Keyboards, I was not simply trying to document a shift in communication practices. I was trying to understand something far more fundamental, what happens to police culture when the spaces that once sustained it quietly disappear, and what fills that void in their absence. After more than two decades in policing, much of it as a detective, supervisor (and Fed rep), I have seen this shift unfold in real time. What began as an organisational adjustment, closing canteens, rationalising estates and digitising communication, has become something much more consequential. It has altered how officers relate to one another, how they learn, and increasingly, how they are judged.

My dissertation starts from a simple but important premise, that police culture has never been static. Academics such as Reiner (2010) and Loftus (2009) have long described it as complex, adaptive, and often contradictory. It can support resilience and solidarity, while at the same time entrenching unhelpful norms. What I argue, however, is that we have misunderstood the function of the environments in which that culture was historically formed. The canteen, the parade room, even the station bar, were not just social luxuries. They were mechanisms of informal regulation, places where behaviour was tested, challenged, moderated, and, importantly, understood within context.

The removal of these spaces, accelerated by austerity measures, estate selloffs, and a growing emphasis on efficiency has not removed police culture. It has displaced it. The conversations still happen, the humour still exists, the storytelling continues. But now it happens on screens rather than across tables. WhatsApp groups replace canteen tables. Microsoft Teams replaces corridor conversations. The shift is not inherently negative, but it is fundamentally different.

What concerns me, and what became increasingly clear through my research, is that the organisational response to this shift has been both reactive and misguided. Rather than recognising digital spaces as the new arenas of cultural formation, leadership has often treated them purely as sites of risk. The response has been to regulate, monitor, and, when necessary, punish. This is where the central argument of my dissertation becomes more pointed. Culture cannot be shaped through punitive process alone. You cannot fix culture with a hammer.

There is a growing tendency within policing to believe that if we identify misconduct, discipline it robustly, and publicise the outcome, culture will improve. This assumption is not supported by the evidence. Organisational culture does not respond well to blunt instruments. As Schein (2010) argues, culture is embedded through shared experience, reinforced through relationships, and sustained through meaning-making. Punishment may deter specific behaviours, but it does not build the underlying values or social norms that define culture.

In fact, there is a strong argument that over-reliance on punitive approaches can be counterproductive. My own experience, supported by emerging research and high-profile cases such as the Operation Hotton and the Casey Review, suggests that when officers feel constantly scrutinised and at risk of sanction, behaviour does not necessarily improve, it becomes more concealed. Informal conversations do not stop; they move to less visible spaces, or they become more guarded and performative. This undermines one of the key functions of informal culture, the ability to challenge and correct behaviour in real time among peers.

My dissertation reframes this issue through the concept of social capital, drawing on Putnam (2000). Traditional policing environments fostered strong bonding social capital, tight, trust-based relationships within teams. These relationships were not always comfortable, but they created conditions where individuals could be held to account informally, often more effectively than through formal processes. The decline of physical spaces has weakened these bonds, while digital communication, although efficient, does not replicate the same depth of connection.

This is where leadership becomes critical, and where, in my view, current models are falling short. Much of what I have observed and what participants in my research articulated, is a form of leadership that is heavily transactional. It is focused on compliance, risk management, and performance metrics. It is, in many ways, understandable given the pressures policing faces, public scrutiny, political oversight, and organisational risk. However, this model is insufficient for shaping culture.

Relational leadership, by contrast, offers a more credible pathway. This is not about being “soft” or avoiding accountability. It is about understanding that culture is shaped through relationships, trust, and credibility. Leaders who are visible, who understand the realities of frontline work, and who engage authentically with their teams are far more likely to influence behaviour than those who rely solely on policy and discipline. Uhl-Bien et al. (2007) describe this within complexity leadership theory as the distinction between administrative and adaptive leadership. Policing has become heavily weighted towards the former, often at the expense of the latter.

The consequence is a form of cultural dissonance. Officers are expected to navigate complex, often traumatic situations with discretion and judgement, yet are managed through systems that prioritise control and standardisation. The informal spaces that once allowed officers to process these experiences collectively have diminished, and the digital spaces that have replaced them are subject to surveillance and retrospective scrutiny. The result is a workforce that is increasingly cautious, sometimes cynical, and often disconnected.

There is also a legitimacy dimension to this. Public confidence in policing is not shaped solely by crime rates or response times. It is influenced by perceptions of fairness, integrity, and internal culture. The exposure of inappropriate behaviour through digital communication has undoubtedly damaged trust. However, the response cannot be limited to enforcement. Legitimacy, as Tyler (2006) argues, is built through procedural justice, through fairness, transparency, and respectful treatment. These principles apply internally as much as they do externally.

One of the more interesting tensions in my research is the coexistence of nostalgia and pragmatism. Many officers I spoke to expressed a sense of loss regarding traditional forms of interaction. They spoke about the value of the canteen as a place to decompress, to learn, and to build relationships. At the same time, they recognised the benefits of digital communication, its speed, its convenience, its ability to connect dispersed teams. The issue, therefore, is not about reverting to the past, but about understanding what has been lost and how it might be replaced or reimagined.

Other sectors offer useful comparisons. Research on workplace design and organisational behaviour consistently highlights the importance of informal interaction in fostering collaboration and innovation (Oldenburg, 1999). The concept of the “third place” spaces that are neither home nor formal workplace has been shown to play a crucial role in building social cohesion. Policing, perhaps inadvertently, has removed many of these spaces without fully considering the consequences.

My dissertation does not argue for a wholesale return to canteens and station bars, nor does it suggest that digital communication is inherently problematic. Rather, it calls for a more balanced and thoughtful approach. If digital platforms are now central to police interaction, then they must be understood as cultural spaces, not just operational tools. This requires a shift in how they are governed. Instead of viewing them solely through a disciplinary lens, there is a need to consider how they can be used to support positive cultural development.

This is where I see the potential for what I describe as cultural leadership. While not yet fully established within the policing literature, the concept reflects an approach to leadership that prioritises meaning, relationships, and shared values. It recognises that culture is not something that can be imposed from above, but something that emerges from within. Leaders, therefore, have a role in shaping the conditions under which culture develops, rather than attempting to control it directly.

To return to the earlier metaphor, culture is not a problem to be smashed into submission. It is something to be carefully sculpted. That requires patience, skill, and, above all, understanding. It requires leaders who are willing to engage with the messy realities of organisational life, rather than retreating into process and policy. It also requires an acceptance that culture change is inherently slow and often uncomfortable.

There is, of course, a counterargument. Some would suggest that in an era of heightened scrutiny, robust disciplinary processes are not only necessary but essential. There is truth in this. Misconduct must be addressed, and public confidence depends on it. However, the risk lies in allowing these processes to become the primary mechanism of cultural change. When discipline becomes the dominant narrative, it can overshadow the more subtle, relational work that is required to build a healthy culture.

My own experience, both as a practitioner and as a researcher, leads me to a more cautious conclusion. Policing is at a crossroads. The shift from canteens to keyboards is not reversible, nor should it be. But the way in which we respond to it will shape the future of the organisation. If we continue to rely on punitive, compliance-driven approaches, we risk creating a culture that is risk-averse, fragmented, and ultimately less effective. If, however, we invest in relational leadership, rebuild social capital, and engage more thoughtfully with digital spaces, there is an opportunity to create a culture that is both resilient and adaptive.

That, ultimately, is the challenge set out in my dissertation. Not to romanticise the past, nor to resist change, but to understand it and to shape it with care rather than force.

 

References

Loftus, B. (2009) Police Culture in a Changing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Oldenburg, R. (1999) The Great Good Place. New York: Marlowe & Company.

Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Reiner, R. (2010) The Politics of the Police. 4th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schein, E.H. (2010) Organizational Culture and Leadership. 4th edn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Tyler, T.R. (2006) Why People Obey the Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R. and McKelvey, B. (2007) ‘Complexity leadership theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era’, The Leadership Quarterly, 18(4), pp. 298–318.