New Recruits in the Police: A study of attitudes, values and beliefs

This research for this project took place between 2016 and 2018. It was funded by Lancashire Constabulary and was conducted independently by Professor Andrew Millie and Dr Steven Hirschler of the Department of Law and Criminology, Edge Hill University. The research occurred across two phases. In phase one (November 2016) one-to-one interviews were conducted with 60 new recruits, 40 of whom had been recruited to become ‘Early Action’ officers, and 20 were standard recruits to immediate response. Six months later (May-June 2017), as many of these as possible were re-interviewed, giving a further 49 interviews. The research resulted in a unique qualitative dataset of 109 interviews with new recruits that revealed a great deal about their attitudes, values and beliefs.