Reflections on the parallel practices of police ethnographers and covert police

Abstract

Covert investigation is a staple feature of late modern policing, posing both challenges and opportunities for ethnographic study. In this chapter, we reflect on our research with officers engaged in covert surveillance to explore the rewards and dilemmas involved in entering this extreme policing environment. We demonstrate how, as ethnographers, we shared with covert officers a similar set of aims and demands as we attempted to build a picture of individuals we, respectively, observed. Central to our experience was a mutual sense of precariousness and a shared set of challenges associated with balancing discrete ethical and legal decisions and restrictions with an overarching commitment to a particular goal. As such, we argue that the craft of covert policing can be viewed as a limited form of ethnography. While those involved in covert policing do not consciously aim to develop an ethnographic stance, their work nevertheless draws on many of the key features and commitments of the method.