Institutional myths and generational boundaries: cultural inertia in the police organisation

This article provides an account for ‘cultural inertia’ – a reluctance to adapt to changing environmental conditions – in policing, despite a time of considerable demographic, policy, and practical reform. Drawing on 100 interviews and observation data collected over the course of 18 months of field work in a police department of a medium-sized Canadian city, I argue that the status quo is sustained by high-rank ‘old-school’ officers through a delicate balancing of both old and new cultural scripts and through the preservation of certain institutional myths: informal myth-management of internal practices on the one hand, and formal ceremonial myth-building with external policing constituents (i.e. government, oversight agencies, media, etc.) on the other. ‘New-generation’ officers deploy old and new cultural scripts to advance their professional standing and preserve their own sense of moral integrity as modern-day police. Frustrations on behalf of both parties, however, reveal subtle symptoms of a changing police landscape: the dominance of old-school ideas grows increasingly precarious as the reigning myths lose legitimacy for the new generation. This study bridges police studies with cultural sociology to further theoretical insight on the relationship between policing, organisational change, and cultural practice.