title: Policy Reform and Resistance: A Case Study of Police Pursuit Policy Change in Queensland, Australia
Creators: name: Hosking, Peter
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Queensland Police Service
subject: pursuit policy iterations
subject: Loss Resistance Theory
subject: Discretionary Independence Theory

description: Police high-speed vehicular pursuits are contentious due to lives lost and property damage resulting from unintended crashes. To reduce pursuit-related trauma, and potential litigation, police jurisdictions have introduced restrictive policies that limit when officers may engage in a pursuit. However, opponents of restrictive pursuit policies believe this results in reduced deterrence, increased criminal offending and dangerous driving practices. This thesis tested these assumptions using a single case study of Queensland, Australia, where the Queensland Police Service (QPS) implemented two restrictive pursuit policy iterations in 2007 and 2011. Five studies sought to establish the policies’ specific aims; whether they were achieved; if there was resistance to the policy reforms; and, if so, what were the rationales for such resistance. The major theoretical contribution of this thesis was to support the notion that Dent and Goldberg’s (1999a; 1999b) Loss Resistance Theory can help explain why police might resist policy reform. Loss Resistance Theory argues that change per se is not the root cause for resistance to performance altering policies, but stakeholders’ perceived losses in terms of their autonomy, status, and independent discretion, resulting from the policy change. Lipsky’s (2010) Discretionary Independence Theory applied to police officers acting as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, 2010), provided an additional theoretical platform to test policy limitations on officers’ decision-making. Several other theories were derived from the literature and used to assist data collection and provide focus to the analysis. These included Classical Deterrence Theory, as derived from Hobbes (1651), Beccaria (1764/1872) and Bentham (1780/1988), that was tested relative to alterations in offending behaviour. Moore’s Public Value Theory (1995), that explains public acceptance of authority and coercion is judged against citizens’ expectations for justice, fairness, efficiency, and effectiveness, provided an opportunity to explore external policy acceptance and/or resistance. Cohen and Felson’s (1979) Routine Activity Theory proposes that for a crime to be successfully committed, the three necessary elements are a motivated offender, the availability of a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian. The theory was tested by analysis of crime patterns and offending behaviours where police guardianship may have been affected by the policy restrictions. The research began with study 1, a documentary archival search and analysis spanning the pre-policy years from 1989 to 2006, that sought to confirm the intent of Queensland’s restrictive pursuit policies. Applying a One Group Pretest/Posttest Design method, using official QPS data from 2003 to 2015, study 2 then explored changes in pursuit frequencies, and associated trauma, before and after each policy iteration. Study 3 used the same method to test changes in frequency and rate of selected offence categories. Study 4 analysed operational reports to identify policy noncompliance that may infer resistance. And, finally, study 5 analysed interview responses from fifteen operational police officers. Findings from study 1 reveal the primary intent of the policies was to reduce the number of deaths associated with police pursuits. Study 2 found that both restrictive policies reduced pursuit-related trauma, as intended. Crime classes tested in study 3 all showed reductions to varying degrees, except evasion offences, which increased exponentially. Early policy resistance was evident from the results of study 4 but diminished over time. The results of studies 4 &amp; 5 found early resistance to the restrictive policies was predicated on officers’ fears of potential loss to their autonomy, independent decision-making capacity, and operational feasibility. This research established that restrictive police pursuit policies did not contribute to increases in the general road death toll due to any lack of road policing enforcement, as predicted in the literature. And, except for evasion offences, they did not facilitate increased crime where the use of a vehicle is either mandatory or desirable for the successful completion of the offence. With the passing of time, and the negation of pre-empted outcomes, resistance is now largely eliminated. However, police officers reportedly continue to resist applying the evasion offence policy requirements, while in their view prosecutors and magistrates fail to adhere to the relevant legislation. Future researchers may wish to test the findings in an alternative jurisdiction to establish if the results can be equally observed and replicated. However, the findings imply that police administrators contemplating policy reform should focus greater attention and resources on ongoing training investment before and after policy implementation. Their goal should be to ensure officers are thoroughly versed in the organization’s aims, so that policies may be fully embraced by operational and prosecutorial staff, while assuaging any perceived losses from the outset, particularly to officers’ status and authority.