We talk to Nicole L. Asquith & Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron, authors of Policing Practices and Vulnerable People and editors of Policing Encounters with Vulnerability

Where did your interest in vulnerable people and policing stem from?

Isabelle: I have been working on the topic of policing and vulnerable people for almost 20 years. My first project was really focused on youth and policing. At the time, it made sense as I had taught young people with learning disabilities during my postgraduate studies in Paris. But I quickly branched out to issues of mental health and comorbidity, and as I was fascinated with issues of ‘community’, I became interested in indigenous people and refugees. In the end, my research work brought me to teach at the NSW Police College, and then at the Tasmania Police Academy. Just before transferring to Tasmania, I met Nicole at a symposium on police and refugees. It occurred that both she and I were trying to find a better, more comprehensive way to teach police about vulnerable people, and about more forms of vulnerability. We immediately clicked. The rest is history. Our first book was published the year following our first conversation in the University of Tasmania parking lot in front of the University staff club.

Nicole: In the early 1990s, after working as a volunteer supporting people living with HIV/AIDS, I took up a position at the Lesbian & Gay Anti-Violence Project supporting victims of hate crime. At that time, I made the decision to move from the frontline to the academe, and completed a PhD that compared heterosexist and anti-Semitic hate speech. This comparative analysis of victimisation prepared me for the role of Senior Policy and Research Officer with the Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau. My early work across four types of marginalised experiences with criminal (in)justice led me to thinking about the universal experiences of vulnerablisation (vulnerability being produced and reproduced over time), and how so many resources are wasted on bespoke responses to similar experiences. Finding Isabelle in 2011, working on similar issues, meant that we could expand the remit of our work and begin applying our research to police training and practice.

What are some of the triumphs and trials you experienced as you conducted this research and wrote this book?

Isabelle: I am always excited when a book or a paper is being accepted by our peers, by police, and suddenly, when it is cited in curriculum and in others’ works. But really, one of the triumphs was seeing our previous work being taken up by other international jurisdictions at the very moment we were putting words on paper for this book. The excitement really added to the writing momentum. We have been working with some wonderful colleagues in the US and Scotland, which was exciting, but it made us want to bed our work in evidence beyond the antipodes. One of my most recent triumphs was receiving three teaching excellence awards. These awards were in recognition of the work I have been doing on how we teach police about vulnerability, and how it is relevant to the field of law enforcement and public health. I feel truly grateful to be part of that international network, working on such important and emerging issues, such as first responders’ mental health, or law enforcement and public health (LEPH) education. I feel like this book has the potential to be transformative for so many policing contexts worldwide.

Nicole: We had been talking about our most recent book for over 12 months, but as with so many academics, we left the writing it to the last minute, and quickly had our plans overrun by the pandemic and worldwide demands to abolish the police. Both global movements created the contexts that we have been discussing for over ten years and enabled us to highlight how inadequate and inappropriate (and for some, too much) policing can exacerbate the underlying vulnerabilities that arise in the context of crime and victimisation. Promoting a universal precautions model to manage a major public health pandemic (such as mask wearing, physical distancing) was similar to the approach we have been arguing for in policing vulnerability. When theory meets praxis, and praxis embodies the theories we have been advocating, our job is made a little easier, and the relevance of our views is heightened. As a disabled scholar, the last 12-months have been scary, but it has also demonstrated that things can be done differently. Our goal should not be to return to “normal” because “normal” was not good for everyone. Universal precautions, as we (and the World Health Organization) advocate, can help us transform life after the pandemic.

What, in your view, is the importance of vulnerability in police curriculum?

Nicole: The selection process to become a police officer in Australia is relatively robust, and in many ways, the tests and hurdles they overcome to be selected for recruit training effectively weeds out any vulnerability. This leaves us with a police service that does not reflect its communities. Vulnerability is ubiquitous, except rhetorically in policing. Highlighting their privilege and their capacity to fundamentally alter the vulnerabilising processes embedded in policing is critically important. It is important not only to ensure that police do not exacerbate and create additional vulnerability for those they encounter but also because at some point, despite their so-called exceptional invulnerability, they too will be vulnerable. How police respond to others’ vulnerability will prepare them for how they deal with their own. If bluff and bluster is standard operational procedure for those they encounter, then bluff and bluster will obscure the vicarious and layered trauma they will accumulate in their role as police officers. Having an ethics of care for others will prepare them for caring for themselves and their peers.

You mentioned that you are delivering this curriculum at the Tasmania Police Academy… what does that look like?

Isabelle: It is always a work in progress. We constantly discuss our curriculum with police and stakeholders, and of course in consideration of new knowledge in the field. At this stage, I am delivering a dynamic and interactive curriculum that looks at a large variety of vulnerability attributes, how they can impact crime and victimisation, and the extent to which this is relevant to policing. I have chosen to steer clear of the siloed approach to vulnerability, and instead focus on the policing process, what critical skills are needed, and how they are transferable across a range of vulnerabilities encountered in policing practice. I talk about the need for cultural capability before police go out to the field. This is a fascinating subject to discuss with the recruits, especially when we open the discussion to the broader topic of law enforcement and public health, and collaborations with other agencies. What I really like about it, is that while I am officially in charge of delivering that curriculum, all instructors at the police academy have rallied in the effort, and issues of vulnerabilities are discussed by all instructors, across the full curriculum, from traffic offences to law, from stop and search to handcuffing.

Why study vulnerable people and policing? And why does this research matter?

Isabelle: I do not think anyone can pretend to call themselves ‘social commentators’ or analysists or researchers without an understanding of the prevalence of vulnerability, and its ubiquity in policing. What 2020 put to prominence is that everyone is vulnerable, either to a horrible, crippling and sometimes deadly disease, or to others’ views of the world. The #Blacklivesmatter movement and Covid19 have brought to prominence an unprecedented vulnerability toll, and social media made it so visible, and so immediately accessible. We are at a crucial point in our history where the narrative about vulnerability is changing, where there is an overwhelming acknowledgement of its ubiquity, and a dismantling of severe and prejudicial stigma around vulnerability: even those deemed ‘invulnerable’ (police, soldiers, paramedics, etc.) can be defenceless in front of hardship or exposure to illness or injury.

Nicole: As with too much in policing, and crime more generally, what is known about the work of police is gleaned from badly scripted TV dramas and reality programs such as COPS. Neither reflect the everyday work of frontline police officers. Entertainment requires horror, death, and destruction to ensure ratings. Whether it is the horror of hand-held cameras capturing police use of force, or the seemingly unceasing murders of men on the streets of America, these representations skew our understanding of policing and crime. The less captivating perspective of quiet conversations managing the aftermath of hurt people hurting hurt people does not capture the attention of the public in the same way as hold outs, hostages, and flying bullets. As social scientists we need to provide critique of police and of the public who know so little of what police do, so we can begin to respond to crime based on evidence not fiction and drama.

Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron is a senior researcher at the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies. She focuses on issues of vulnerability, police education, and law enforcement and public health research, and more recently, issues of literacy. An award winning educator, she sits on the Board of Directors of the Global Law Enforcement and Public Health Association, where she heads up the Education Special Interest Group, and sits on the First Responders Mental Health Special Interest Group, as well as the Prosecutors Group. She consults for the UNODC on vulnerability matters and international curricula. Isabelle sits on various international journal editorial committees, and on international and Australian charitable, professional and research governance boards.

Nicole L Asquith is the Director of the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies, Professor of Policing and Emergency Management at the University of Tasmania, and along with Isabelle, is the Co-Director of the Vulnerability, Resilience, and Policing Research Consortium. In addition to her work with Isabelle, Nicole researches and publishes on hate crime, family and domestic violence, sexual assault, queering and cripping criminology, and hopes to publish her long-awaited monograph on imagining a world without (the need for) police this year.