CSP1000: Communication and Academic Skills 1: Core Skills.

This study-unit is assessed by means of a classwork task, a 1,500-word research paper and a
6-minute presentation.

Research Paper (70%)

The research paper should be based on the three assigned extracts. The written assignment
should reflect the synthesis grid and be organised thematically. The 1,500-word (+/-10%)
research paper should consist of the following:

1. An introduction which provides:

a. an overview of the topic;
b. the paper’s position with respect to the topic;
c. the organisational pattern of the research paper.
2. Several thematic sections (including subheadings) which critically discuss the paper’s
position on the three extracts. Here you need to demonstrate a strong capacity to
analyse and synthesise information from the three extracts.
3. A conclusion in which you sum up the discussion of the key ideas related to the
topic.

The research paper should be uploaded via Turnitin by 26 April 2024.

The research paper will be graded on the following criteria:

 Synthesised information from all three extracts

 Position (dominant throughout the Research Paper)
 Content that is faithful to the extracts
 Content which distinguishes between facts and opinions in the extracts
 Critical engagement
 Clarity of expression
 Academic register and style
 Paraphrasing
 Organisation and structure
 Logical progression
 Referencing style
 Word count
 Editing process

Note

 Use the referencing style as adopted in your specific discipline

 All sections should be clearly marked by means of subheadings
 Every sentence containing paraphrased information requires an in-text citation
 The reference list does not form part of the total word count
 In-text citations are part of the word count
 State the word count at the end of the document
Extract 1
Policing Disobedient Demonstrations

On the standard understanding, civil disobedience is an action that

intentionally breaks a law the lawbreaker takes to be unjust, to engage,
rather than subvert or evade, the political process. The role that civil
disobedience plays in the political process has led many to conclude that
the state has strong reasons to protect it, or that there is a right to civil
disobedience (Rawls 1999, Brownlee 2012, Smith 2013, Delmas 2018).
The implications of the value of civil disobedience have been worked out
primarily in the context of prosecution and punishment (Dworkin 1978,
1985). Prosecutors must sometimes decline to bring charges. If they
bring charges and secure conviction, judges must sentence leniently. But
before we get to that stage, the disobedient must be arrested. And the
considerations that count in favor of declining prosecution or assigning a
lenient sentence might well be relevant to the decision of whether to
make an arrest or a command to disperse in the first place. So, an
essential question about the state’s response to civil disobedience
concerns how the police should respond to civil disobedience. I take up
that question here.
I’ll restrict my focus to a narrow class of civil disobedience: disobedient
demonstrations. These demonstrations take place in public spaces and are
disobedient, typically, by making intentionally disorderly use of them.
Examples include marching on roadways and remaining for extended
periods of time in spaces like public squares (without authorization).

Justice Requires Democracy, but Democracy Produces Injustice

There are compelling reasons for allowing, even institutionalizing, civil
disobedience. In reality, our political decision-making procedures
regularly fail to track the truth or justice. They are frequently captured by
special interests, and rarely achieve a fair representation of interests. We
might then think that while we have some reason to obey the outcomes
of political decision-making procedures, our reasons are rather weak and
can be outweighed by strong countervailing reasons. It’s true that we
have reason to defer to political outcomes, the disobedient might say, but
it’s also true that there are political decisions that issue from captured or
otherwise broken procedures.

Continuing this thread, the disobedient might say that their actions
respect the political process and their compatriots while disobeying it. A
defining feature of civil disobedience is its political nature; it is intended to
change the law. While it is illegal, it does not spring from a rejection of
political authority; it is supposed to respect the authority of
democratically enacted law while attempting to change it. The dis-
obedience is not revolution, or terrorism, or merely a selfish attempt to
benefit from the rule-following of others that produces a stable political
order while not oneself following the rules.
Additionally, when we think about how citizens engage the political
process, dis- obedient demonstrations are a natural fit. Voting is not the
only way to engage in politics. People also engage in political writing to
shape public opinion, call their representatives, donate to or volunteer for
political campaigns, and signal their commitment to various causes
through yard signs, bumper stickers, and so on. There is good reason for
this: voting happens periodically, and no political campaign can make
clear a representative’s position on every matter such that one could
interpret the representative–represented relationship as one in which the
representative is a pure delegate operating on behalf of the represented.
Few political philosophers and legal theorists now think that civil
disobedience is inconsistent with our political obligations. For this reason,
enforcing the law to break up a civilly disobedient demonstration is often
a sign of an unhealthy democracy.

Policing must be Proportional

Proportionality requirements are, I think, the most widely endorsed
substantive (rather than procedural) constraint on the execution of
political decisions. For force to be proportional, roughly speaking, it must
be “fitting.” Soldiers, even if they’re typically permitted to follow unjust
orders in war, are prohibited from using disproportionate means to carry
out their orders.
Similarly, the criminal justice system is widely held to be constrained by a
proportionality requirement. A criminal law, to be legitimate, must be
worth it, or satisfy legitimate interests of the state without overly
burdening citizens. The punishment for conviction, similarly, must “fit” the
crime.
That proportionality requirements apply widely is unsurprising considering
its source in theories of permissible defensive violence.8 People are
permitted to use force to defend themselves, but it must be fitting. Lethal
defensive violence is not permissible when one is defending oneself from
an annoying pinch. It is, how- ever, permissible when one is defending
oneself from grievous bodily harm, sexual assault, and so on. So, we
should conclude that policing must also be proportional.
This conclusion, far from being trivial, has far-reaching implications for
theories of just policing. The reason is that, while a law may in principle
satisfy the proportionality requirement, it does not follow that police
strategies for its enforcement will be proportionate. Just laws can be
unjustly enforced. The legal regime that allows Terry stops might be in
principle proportional, but the “stop, question, and frisk” strategy
employed by the NYPD—considering the broken misdemeanor system and
the psychological costs associated with repeated Terry stops—is not. Most
important for present purposes, proportionality requires police to de-
escalate situations when- ever possible. Officers who routinely fail to de-
escalate rely on too much force in their policing.

Skirmish Lines Provoke Threats

On June 2nd, 2020, protestors in New Orleans marched onto Interstate
10 to block traffic. The protests were a response to George Floyd’s
murder by Derek Chauvin. Officers with the New Orleans Police
Department (NOPD) successfully moved the demonstration off the
highway by kneeling in solidarity with protestors. The civilly disobedient
activity—obstructing a highway is a felony—was given informal approval,
and the demonstration proceeded onto residential streets where they
were less disruptive than on a federal interstate. Apparently, having been
able to demonstrate their point in a way that demanded and received
accommodation from the police and others, while also drawing attention
to their message, the protestors were satisfied. This shows that
negotiated accommodation can be a successful strategy, even just on
instrumental terms. Unfortunately, the next day, the negotiated
accommodation broke down. When the demonstration reached the NOPD,
officers invited a few protest leaders behind the first skirmish line to
negotiate. Representatives for the demonstration requested that they be
escorted across the bridge and back. The NOPD declined and offered
instead to again kneel together in solidarity. Representatives declined. A
standoff ensued. By the end of the altercation, NOPD fired three canisters
of tear gas and several non-lethal projectiles.
How are we to evaluate this situation? Those interested in escaping
accountability for the outcome might self-servingly interpret the events as
one in which demonstrators posed a threat, and the police reacted with
permissible defensive force. A common mistake, one made by the
Supreme Court, in evaluating cases of self-defense, is to zoom in on the
split-second before an officer pulls the trigger to deter- mine whether the
use of force was reasonable and so justified. However, zooming in on the
split-second means we overlook the bad decisions that put the officers in
a position to need to use force. The proportionality approach I defended
above guards against such errors. To see that, we must return to the
civilly disobedient nature of the altercation. The event began as a form of
civil disobedience. Further, given the impetus for the demonstrations, the
police lack the kind of legitimacy in the eyes of the protestors that would
enable them to effectively negotiate. This means the escalating
disobedience is predictable.
Protests are likely to include a small minority of people who are inclined
towards violence and setting up a skirmish line puts those people in a
position to resort to violence. When the situation escalates, and the police
want to hold the line, they too will have to resort to force.
The predictable nature of the disobedience and its escalation has
asymmetric implications for the police and protestors. The protestors will
reasonably believe they did not initiate force. They will be inclined to view
their return of force as defensive. And in turn, since the police officers (as
well as the protestors) are now in genuine danger of physical harm, both
groups will be inclined to increase their level of force to achieve control of
the situation and eliminate any threats to their safety.
But, and this is a crucial part of the case, better policing could have
prevented the outcome. Police know that a hardline approach to a
demonstration like this is likely to escalate tensions, risking violence.
Better to give the protestors an option for continuing that doesn’t require
deference to the police. By forcing deference to the police, they
predictably escalate the confrontation.
By casting this as a dispute between a small group of violent protestors
and the police exercising their authority, we overlook the fact that the
NOPD’s tactics were partly responsible, and we do not hold them
accountable for violating their professional moral obligations.
When we take a step back, then, we can see that the skirmish line will
often be part of police-generated defense. The police are not intentional
provocateurs, but in view of these predictable dynamics they are
negligently or recklessly generating a need for defensive force. Given
their professional obligations to protect the interests of the policed, this
renders the provocation impermissible, and so renders the defensive force
unfitting.

Conclusion
I’ve argued that policing must satisfy a proportionality requirement People
have a legitimate interest, or even a genuine moral right, to engage in
civil disobedience. Police have a professional obligation to de-escalate and
minimize their use of force. Thus, when the police take actions that
predictably escalate conflicts with disobedient demonstrators by forcing
disobedience to be uncivil, the police act in important ways like
provocateurs.

Source:
Monaghan, J. (2023). Policing Disobedient Demonstrations. Criminal Law
and Philosophy, 17, (pp.653-668).

(Monaghan, 2023)

Extract 2

Policing Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious infringement
of law carried out to express opposition to law and policy (Rawls, 1999, p.
320).1 The response of a liberal democratic state to this kind of protest is
the subject of an ongoing debate. It is striking, however, that theorists
often limit their focus to the post-arrest treatment of activists. Although
moral reflection over post-arrest sanctions is an important aspect of
appraising the state’s response to civil disobedience, it is not the only, or
perhaps even the most, significant issue that should be explored. Also
important is the matter of how law enforcement agencies, particularly the
police, react to civil disobedience prior to or during its commission.
The goal of this article is to encourage reflection on this issue by
sketching a prescriptive account of the approach that police forces in
liberal democratic societies could adopt towards civilly disobedient
citizens. The article delineates and defends ‘negotiated accommodation’
as a prescriptive framework for policing civil disobedience.

A Policing Philosophy for Civil Disobedience

The argument that is developed throughout this article rests on the
assumptions that policing philosophies inform the actions of the police. It
focuses throughout on the case in favour of a policing philosophy that
adopts what I describe as an ‘accommodating’ strategy towards civil
disobedience.
The term ‘accommodating’ in this context means that the police should,
where possible, attempt to cooperate with civilly disobedient activists in
order to assist in their commission of a protest that is effective as an
expression of their grievance against law or policy.3 The strategy can be
contrasted with ‘prevention’, which mandates police action to stop civilly
disobedient acts from occurring or to limit the duration of such acts in so
far as they occur. This strategy can also be contrasted with
‘management’, which recommends dialogue with protesters intent on civil
disobedience where the aim of police is to exercise control through
reducing the visibility and impact of protest. A willingness to adopt
accommodation, rather than prevention or management, as a guide to
policing civil disobedience is suggested by an account of the general
function of policing that incorporates as an essential element ‘the basic
idea that the police must protect the democratic framework of opportunity
for change’ (Winter, 1998, p. 190). This entails a commitment on the part
of the police to safeguarding a wide range of opportunities for citizens to
communicate their opposition to current law and policy, including lawful
demonstration and civilly disobedient protest.
The claim that civil disobedience – an unlawful form of protest – should be
included within the range of opportunities to communicate opposition
appears counter-intuitive, but it can be supported through considering the
important role that this form of political protest plays within democratic
societies. There are contrasting accounts of this role within political
philosophy. Some argue that civil disobedience is a form of protest that
can be morally justified due to its beneficial consequences for the justice
of law and policy or the quality of democratic debate (Dworkin, 1985, pp.
104–16; Markovits, 2005; Rawls, 1999, pp. 335–43). Others suggest that
civil disobedience is a mode of political participation that should be
guaranteed to citizens as a moral right. It is commonly understood as a
protest carried out to express sincere and conscientious political
opposition, rather than self-interest or coercion of democratic majorities
(Rawls, 1999, p. 321). It is a mode of protest that adopts symbolic tactics
of lawbreaking to raise awareness of an issue, rather than violence as a
means of expressing or pursuing a cause (Habermas, 1996, pp. 382–4).
It is, finally, a mode of protest that has become an established, if not
universally accepted, feature of democratic politics (Lovell, 2009, pp. 72–
8). These considerations support the claim that civil disobedience plays a
legitimate role in the public life of democratic societies. It is thus
appropriate for the state – and the police in particular – to respond to civil
disobedience in a way that takes into account this status.
This argument, though, does not in itself vindicate a policy of
accommodation by the police. One can agree that civil disobedience has a
certain value without thinking that this gives the police compelling reason
to treat its practitioners differently to other lawbreakers. According to this
view, the police, along with other agents of the state, should take steps
aimed at the prevention or management of civil disobedience. There are,
in response, three reasons that weigh in favour of accommodation rather
than prevention or management. First, a strategy of prevention or
management is likely to reduce the potential benefits of civil disobedience
campaigns for societies and individuals. Civil disobedience, in virtue of
being an unlawful form of protest, is a particularly efficacious means of
generating publicity for oppositional arguments and thus promoting
potentially beneficial society-wide deliberation (Smith, 2011, pp. 161–2).
It is also, as noted above, a means through which citizens can express
the intensity of their opposition to law and policy (Singer, 1974, p. 84).
These views suggest that a policy of prevention or management would
incur certain costs, to society and to individuals, which might not be
accrued through a more accommodating strategy. Second, a strategy of
accommodation generates practical advantages for police that are less
likely to arise if management or prevention is preferred. The problem with
management or prevention is that these strategies can lead to
deterioration in relations between police and protest groups and an
escalation of tensions on the ground. An accommodating approach, by
contrast, can contribute to building relations of trust that enhance the
capacity of the police to maintain public order. Third, the strategy
adopted by police towards civil disobedience has an important expressive
dimension. If police forces are seen to adopt various strategies aimed at
the prevention or silencing of civil disobedience, then it may be difficult to
resist the conclusion that this form of protest is regarded as, at best, a
public nuisance or, at worst, an unacceptable mode of political
participation. If, on the other hand, the police adopt a more
accommodating stance, this would better convey an appreciation of the
role of civil disobedience in democratic societies

The Idea of Negotiated Accommodation

The core intuition is that an accommodating approach increases in
feasibility and desirability to the extent that there are effective channels
of communication between police and activists prior to and/or during a
civil disobedience action. This means that the police should work towards
facilitating their expression of conscientious protest, even if this
expression includes as an essential element public and non-violent acts of
lawbreaking. This requires at a minimum a certain restraint in enforcing
the law against civilly disobedient citizens. This policy is also compatible
with the arrest of civilly disobedient citizens at a certain point during their
protest. The justification of arrests is based in part on the good of
restoring public order and protecting the rights of third parties, but it
might also be defended through appeal to the interests of activists.
Arrests can contribute to the goals of civil disobedience, at least in so far
as it is carried out as a means of generating publicity for a cause or of
communicating deeply felt opposition through demonstrating a willingness
to shoulder certain burdens (Brownlee, 2007, p. 181). These goals are,
somewhat ironically, often frustrated by a refusal of police to intervene in
an unlawful protest. The police should ascribe considerable weight to the
good of allowing protesters to secure visibility for their protest, which is a
good that might not be realised through preventative or premature
arrests.

The good of negotiation is that it enables police to gather information

about the intentions of protesters that is likely to enhance their capacity
to protect the legitimate interests of participants and third parties. It also
opens channels of communication ‘at the scene’ to reduce the likelihood
that civilly disobedient actions will escalate into violence or confrontation
(Waddington, 1994, pp. 152–3). It should be noted at this point that
protest groups who engage in civil disobedience have interests that can
be pursued through negotiation with police. First, these protesters share
with the police an interest in avoiding the threat of violence and
confrontation. Activists can reduce risks to their personal safety, remove
barriers that may discourage persons from joining a protest event, and
ensure that their protest will avoid the negative publicity associated with
violence (Peterson, 2006, p. 72). Second, protesters can use negotiation
to ‘stage manage’ aspects of their protest to suit their aims and
objectives.
The process of negotiation transforms a potentially violent confrontation
into a choreographed spectacle, whereby each side performs a role that
enables it to secure its objectives to some degree. The ideal of negotiated
accommodation avoids the tactics of prevention that police often employ
in response to the threat of civil disobedience. This is the principal point of
contrast between negotiated accommodation and the more familiar tactics
of ‘command and control’ or ‘strategic incapacitation’ that are extensively
discussed in the criminology and social movement literatures (Noakes and
Gillham, 2006, pp. 108–14). These styles of policing philosophy, based
upon prevention rather than accommodation, have been identified as the
dominant responses by police forces to the wave of protests against
global summits in the past decade (Della Porta et al., 2006). Their aim is
to reduce the risks typically associated with transgressive protest through
various pre-emptive strikes, such as ‘the creation of no protest zones,
heavy use of less-lethal weaponry, and surveillance of protest
organizations.’ (Vitale, 2007, p. 406). The danger of this kind of
preventative policing, from the point of view of negotiated
accommodation, is that the advantages of civil disobedience discussed in
the previous section, both for the public in general and for individual
activists, are sacrificed apparently on the basis of exaggerated concerns
about the likelihood of violence and disorder.
The philosophy of negotiated accommodation also disavows more subtle
tactics that police employ to nullify the impact of civil disobedience. These
tactics have been associated with the so-called ‘negotiated management’
approach to policing protest (Lovell, 2009, pp. 112–5). The trouble with
this approach is that excessive police management can reduce the
effectiveness of unlawful protest. This occurs in so far as police impose
through negotiation so many public order constraints on protesters that
their action fails to trigger the degree of public visibility necessary for it to
function as a means of impacting on the public sphere (Reiner, 1998, pp.
46–7).
Conclusion
This article has addressed the absence of any sustained discussion of
policing civil disobedience in the literature by sketching a policing
philosophy of negotiated accommodation. The guidelines presented do not
add up to hard-and-fast rules, but lend structure to public deliberation
about the conduct of police prior to and during civilly disobedient protest.

Source:
Smith, W., (2012) Policing Civil Disobedience. Political Studies, 60, 826-
842.

Extract 3
Policing unacceptable protest in England and Wales: A
case study of the policing of anti-fracking protests

Introduction
Following the death of Ian Tomlinson, a 47-year-old newspaper vendor, at
protests against the G20 meeting in London in 2009, a number of
changes were proposed to public order policing in England and Wales. A
new ‘human rights compliant’ framework for public order policing, based
on dialogue, communication and a commitment to ‘facilitating’ peaceful
protest, was proposed as a necessary response to help the police service
‘adapt to the modern day demands of public order policing’ (HMIC, 2009:
27). This new approach to protest policing, based on compliance with the
Human Rights Act 1998 (ACPO, 2010; HMIC, 2009;) led to the
introduction of new policing initiatives, the most notable of which was the
introduction of Police Liaison Teams (PLTs) whose role is to liaise with
protesters before, during and after protest events. The role of the PLT is
to build links between police, protest organisers and protesters through
the establishment of dialogue and relationships based on trust. PLTs
therefore are understood to play a key role in ‘reducing disorder,
facilitating peaceful protest and balancing human rights’ (Smith, 2015:
25).

Recent research on developments in public order policing

The idea that a repressive approach to public order policing in the UK has
been superseded has been reiterated in a number of recent studies. First,
this research has argued that there has been a substantive shift in public
order policing since 2009 to a model clearly based on human rights
principles structured around a commitment on the part of police to
facilitation and dialogue. Second, this body of research has suggested
that central to these changes has been the successful and effective
introduction of Protest Liaison Officers (PLOs). This is made possible
because PLOs are understood to adopt a ‘“non-repressive” approach
before, during and after crowd events to establish relationships of trust
with protesters’ (Stott et al.,2013: 214). It is suggested that the
development of this ‘communications- oriented approach to protest
policing’ (Waddington, 2013: 48) is central to the notable changes on the
ground. Third, for many of these observers, the continued progress of
dialogue policing requires enhanced communication between police and
protesters. A number of these studies have recognised that there can be
difficulties in establishing relationships of trust with certain ‘types’ of
protesters (Gorringe and Rosie, 2013; Stott et al., 2013; Gorringe et al.,
2012). A negotiated management approach to protest policing ‘requires
demonstrators to be willing to talk to police’ (King and Waddington in
Gorringe and Rosie, 2013: 2). There is an acceptance that dialogue
policing may not be capable of overcoming the fact that so-called
‘transgressive protesters’ see the police as ‘part of the system’. Work on
transgressive protest in the US has suggested that the tactics,
organisational structure and decision-making processes employed by
some protest groups has posed a significant challenge to police (Gillham,
2011; Gillham and Noakes, 2007; Gillham et al., 2013). An unwillingness
to engage with police and the adoption of tactics that transcend legal and
cultural norms pose a clear challenge to a police view of protest
facilitation premised on negotiation and agreement. However, in the UK,
it has been argued that if this hostility to police on the part of
transgressive protesters is accepted, and some disruption is tolerated, the
new approach to public order policing still has the potential to ‘improve
mutual understanding and reduce the potential for violence between
police and protesters’ (Gorringe and Rosie, 2013: 7).
In this article we offer our own response to the call for direct empirical
testing of the new HMIC reforms. We have previously argued that, despite
these reforms, public order policing in England and Wales remains highly
discretionary (Gilmore et al., 2016) and we have also suggested that
protests against hydraulic fracturing – better known as ‘fracking’ – are of
particular significance to an assessment of current public order policing
policy and practice (Gilmore et al., 2017).

Police policy relating to anti-fracking protest

‘Fracking’, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting shale gas
from solid rock below the earth’s surface, by pumping water, sand and
chemicals into the rock. The first major protests against fracking in
England and Wales came in the summer of 2013 at Balcombe, Sussex,
where a coalition of local groups and environmental campaigners
established a protest camp at an exploratory drilling site. In 2015, in
response to these protests, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC)
produced specific guidance on policing protests against fracking (ACPO,
20151). The aim of this guidance was to draw upon lessons learnt in the
policing of protests against fracking and it provides twenty-seven
recommendations for change that include emphases on police
communication strategies as well as operational planning and
management. The ultimate goal of the guidance was to work toward a
‘consistent approach to the policing of onshore oil and gas operations’
(ACPO, 2015: 1) but this guidance arguably provides an insight into the
way in which public order policing policy in the UK is developing
specifically in response to anti-fracking protest. In this sense, the most
notable inclusion to this guidance is an explanation of what is referred to
as the ‘Structure of Protest’ (ACPO, 2015: 7) and this includes a diagram
which demonstrates ‘the basic positioning of individuals within protest and
the level of actions attributable to each category’ (ACPO, 2015: 7).
The training materials provide further detail on the distinction between
‘good’ and ‘bad’ protesters which again reflects the definition of
transgressive protest defined by both the demands made and the tactics
employed (Figure 2). In this guidance – given to those officers directly
responsible for establishing relationships with those involved in protest –
attempts to move beyond purely symbolic gestures, and a direct
opposition to the political and social order, are seemingly placed beyond
the pale.
The purpose of the case study set out below is to consider whether the
framing of anti-fracking in police policy can be seen to be having an effect
on operational policing.

The Barton Moss Community Protection Camp (BMCPC)

The news that energy company IGas Energy would begin exploratory
drilling to explore for coal bed methane and other unconventional gas
resources at Barton Moss, in mid-November 2013, prompted concerned
residents from Salford and the wider Greater Manchester area, as well as
some from further afield, to set up a camp at the site. Over the period of
protest, between November 2013 and April 2014, the camp established
itself as a community-led protection camp, a non-hierarchical unit with no
leader or centre that was sustained by support and donations of food, fuel
and general supplies from people living in the local area.

Liaison and communication

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) prides itself on being a centre of
excellence for the management of public disorder (GMP, 2013b).
However, dialogue was not effectively established at Barton Moss and, for
the duration of the protest, officers and protesters were not able to
establish either meaningful communication or points of agreement about
the management of daily marches. For GMP, this lack of dialogue was a
result of a refusal by protesters to engage with police. GMP explained to
the Police Chiefs Council (PCC) Panel that dialogue and negotiation had
been attempted by officers at Barton Moss but ‘GMP felt some protesters
acted in a cynical way and had no real desire to negotiate with police’
(PCC Panel, 2014: 17). GMP and the PCC Panel concluded that this refusal
to communicate effectively was due to the unwillingness of the purposely
non-hierarchical camp to elect an official spokesperson and a more
general unwillingness on the part of protesters to engage with the police.
In the view of the protesters, attempts were made to enter into
negotiations but the response of police suggested that a commitment to
meaningful dialogue was not reciprocated. For many protesters, the direct
experience of policing at Barton Moss was sufficient to induce a hesitance,
or reluctance, to engage with the police. For others, their experience at
other protests was sufficient to dissuade them from engaging with
officers. The PLOs, with whom responsibility for establishing dialogue lay,
were also perceived to be primarily involved in gathering intelligence. This
apparent function exacerbated the lack of trust between protesters and
the police, and also reinforced suspicions held by many of the protesters
about the role of PLOs, suspicions again undoubtedly exacerbated by the
public accounts of police infiltration of protest groups.

Police repression
The conduct of GMP officers raised further concerns about the police role.
Many of the more experienced protesters interviewed cited the policing at
Barton Moss as the most brutal that they had witnessed. Antagonistic
methods of harassment were outlined by many of the protestors.
Protesters also reported being physically handled by the police. They
described the frequent occurrence of being pushed and shoved, having
their heels stood on, being pushed down the road, and being verbally
harassed.
Interviewees described the tactic of mass arrest as having a particularly
brutalising and destabilising effect on camp residents (see Gilmore et al.,
2016, 2017). In addition, while those interviewed were clear about the
support received by the camp from people in the local community, some
did suggest that the policing had the effect of deterring people from
joining the protest.
Complaints against GMP officers included ‘aggressive behaviour’,
‘unnecessary force’, ‘abusive language’, ‘improper treatment’ and being
‘denied legal advice’, but many of the interviewees also explained that
they didn’t make formal complaints about their experience at Barton Moss
because of a lack of trust and confidence in the police complaints system.
The experiences protesters reported of the policing of daily marches and
the police misrepresentation of the protest suggested that the approach
taken by GMP at Barton Moss was not in line with the new approach to
public order policing recommended by HMIC.

Conclusion
The experience at Barton Moss appears to demonstrate that the
commitment to dialogue and facilitation on the part of police is not
universal. Where researchers have been able to state clearly that protest
policing has been ‘relatively permissive and enlightened’ (Waddington,
2013: 63), it is in response to protest that conforms largely to the police
definition of what is acceptable. The Barton Moss protest demonstrates
that despite assurances to the contrary in the academic literature,
transgressive protest does pose a significant challenge to the idea of a
reformed approach to public order policing in England and Wales. It is
important therefore to consider how, in current police policy, strategies
for liaison and negotiation are developing in conjunction with ideas about
what constitutes legitimate forms of protest. Waddington argued that
those protests which ‘deliberately place themselves beyond institutional
boundaries in order to maximise disruption’ are ‘vulnerable to coercive
policing strategies’ (1995: 11) and Barton Moss demonstrated that this is
still the case.

Source:
Jackson, W., Gilmore, J. & Monk, H. (2018). Policing unacceptable protest
in England and Wales: A case study of the policing of anti-fracking
protests. Critical Social Policy, 39(1), 23-42.