Paradigm not procedure: current challenges to police cultural incorporation of human rights in England and Wales

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which human rights have become an organizational norm in UK policing, a decade after the Human Rights Act 1998 was enacted. Particular reference is made to covert investigation and human rights in the context of new police powers enacted after the HRA 1998 which extended police access to and use of covert investigation. The paper concludes that attempts to achieve transparency through documentation has created the impression that protection of human rights is a bureaucratic process rather than a cultural paradigm.