Drugs policing

Of all the features comprising the contemporary policing landscape, drugs is arguably one of the most intriguing, complicated and contentious. It is a domain that brings into sharp focus the multifaceted nature of the police role in society, being characterised by a miscellany of tasks, goal conflicts and policy trade-offs. Under the drugs umbrella, those undertaking policing functions can be exposed to anything from violent organised crime groups to drug overdose deaths. Drugs policing is undoubtedly faced with an impossible mandate. Central to this is how drugs cuts across so many societal issues, presenting complex, compounding challenges that are intertwined with a range of wicked problems. Poverty, crime, addiction, inequality, homelessness, personal trauma and mental health conditions are all regularly connected in various ways to the use, supply and presence of drugs in communities. At the same time, while no drug use is entirely harmless, drugs are a source of pleasure for many and can often be used with minimal risk to both the user and the general public. Consequently, drugs and their control are bound up in thorny moral and politically charged debates that are difficult to reconcile.

I am an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in policing, drug policy and qualitative research methods. My main areas of research are drugs policing and police culture. This wide ranging programme of research aims to explore the complexities of the police operating environment and how policing interventions are conducted, to promote enhanced understand of their role and impacts. It pushes the concept of police culture in new directions by bringing into play the sociology of culture and organisational theory to capture nuance behind the cultural knowledge police officers deploy as they deal with the ambiguities and challenges of their occupational duties.

I am the author of Taking Care of Business (OUP, 2016), an ethnography of police detectives, drug law enforcement and proactive investigation. This book provides a rare insight into the everyday realities of the ‘war on drugs’ by exploring how police officers perceive the drug world and their role in it, translate policy from its written form into action, and utilise intelligence-led policing strategies to instigate covert operations and make cases. It also critically examines the most pertinent legislative initiatives, organisational reforms, and shifts in thinking concerning the values, objectives and norms of policing that have occurred over recent decades, which, between them, have contributed to significant changes in the ways that detectives are trained and investigations are controlled and carried out.

My current research – Policing Drugs in a Rapidly Changing Environment – is concerned with innovation and reform in drugs policing and the interface between law enforcement and public health. This project was funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust. My focus is on ‘harm reduction policing’, which is broadly defined as police measures that aim to reduce the adverse health, social and economic consequences of drug use, drug markets and efforts to control them through the criminal justice system. I’m particularly interested in alternatives to criminalisation in the form of police-led diversion schemes. Other measures that fall within the scope of this project include the carrying of naloxone by front-line officers and police support for harm reduction services, such as heroin-assisted treatment, drug consumption rooms and drug safety testing.

A connected area of research in which I am active is drug treatment. This research stems from an ESRC funded project led by Professor Toby Seddon on the contractual governance of drug users in treatment settings.

Publications

Bacon, M. (2021) 'Desistance from criminalisation: Police culture and new directions in drugs policing', Policing and Society.

Bacon, M. and Seddon, T. (2020) 'Controlling drug users: Forms of power and behavioural regulation in drug treatment services', British Journal of Criminology, 60(2): 403-421.

Bacon, M. (2016) Taking Care of Business: Police Detectives, Drug Law Enforcement and Proactive Investigation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bacon, M. (2016) 'Maintaining order in the drug game: Applying harm reduction principles to drug detective work', Police Research and Practice, 17(4): 306-316.

Bacon, M. (2013) 'The informal regulation of an illegal trade: The hidden politics of drug detective work', Etnografia e Ricera Qualitativa, 1/2013: 61-80.

Bacon, M. and Seddon, T. (2013) 'The contractual governance of drug users in treatment', International Journal of Drug Policy, 24(5): 379-384.

Bacon, M. (2013) 'Dancing around drugs: Policing the illegal drug markets of the night-time economy in England and Wales', in P. Saitta, J. Shapland and A. Verhage (eds.) Getting By or Getting Rich? The Formal, Informal and Criminal Economy in a Globalized World, The Hague: Eleven Publishing (pp261-283).

Blogs

Bacon, M. (2021) 'Why are police moving away from criminalising people who use drugs?', Talk Social Justice

Bacon, M. (2013) 'The death of the drug squad', BSC Policing Network