The importance of context and cognitive agency in developing police knowledge: going beyond the police science discourse

Abstract

This paper argues the current exposition of police knowledge through the discourses of
police science and evidenced based policing (EBP) leads to exaggerated claims about what
is, and can be, known in policing. This new orthodoxy underestimates the challenges of
applying knowledge within culturally-mediated police practice. The paper draws upon
virtue epistemology highlighting the role cognitive agency plays in establishing knowledge
claims. We challenge the assumption that it is possible to derive what works in all instances
of certain aspects of policing and suggest it would be more apt to speak about what worked
within a specific police context.