Revisiting police reform: Rank-Neutral Space as resistance and conformity

Abstract

The contemporary policing landscape is challenging traditional, hierarchical working arrangements as the police respond to new and more complex demands. Scholars have long recognized police occupational culture as a barrier to organizational change. Rank-centric cultural conventions conflict with alternative, democratic forms of working. This article introduces the concept of Rank-Neutral Space to describe an emerging practice where police officers navigate the hierarchical-laden culture to bring about change. In theorizing Rank-Neutral Space, I bring together perspectives from the sociology of space and findings from a qualitative study of police leadership, to define the space as a site of resistance and conformity, to capture the complexity of reform in the police as both processes of change and continuity.