Philosophical anthropology and the premises of research about the police

This chapter will discuss the premises upon which different research methods and modes of analysis popular in contemporary criminology are based. Particular attention is given to the premises on which participatory methods of research, including ethnography, are based. As a means of contrast, Evidence Based Policing (EBP), and in particular the model of EBP adopted by the Cambridge Centre for Evidence-Based Policing, is considered. Comparisons between EBP and ethnographic studies of policing are explored, theoretically and in relation to policy and practice change within police constabularies in England and Wales. It is argued that there is insufficient attention paid to philosophical anthropology in this approach to police research and that a refocus on the observation of human action, which is creative, attributes meaning to phenomena and is conceptualised best as negotiated in interaction with others, is central within policing research.