Taking Care of Business offers a rich and insightful ethnography of specialist detective units assigned to the task of investigating drug offences and gathering evidence to support the prosecution of the persons who perpetrate them. Based on extensive fieldwork undertaken in two English police service areas, it provides an in-depth analysis of the everyday realities of the ‘war on drugs’ and the associated working rules, tacit understandings, and underlying assumptions that operate beneath the presentational canopy of police organizations. The analytical standpoint adopted places the occupatio ... More

Taking Care of Business offers a rich and insightful ethnography of specialist detective units assigned to the task of investigating drug offences and gathering evidence to support the prosecution of the persons who perpetrate them. Based on extensive fieldwork undertaken in two English police service areas, it provides an in-depth analysis of the everyday realities of the ‘war on drugs’ and the associated working rules, tacit understandings, and underlying assumptions that operate beneath the presentational canopy of police organizations. The analytical standpoint adopted places the occupational culture of the police at the centre of an understanding of police work and criminal justice processes. By interweaving the findings of observations, interviews, and documentary analyses, the author explores how police officers perceive the drug world and their role in it, translate policy from its written form into action, and utilize intelligence-led policing strategies to instigate covert operations and make cases. The book also critically examines the most pertinent legislative initiatives, organizational reforms, and shifts in thinking about the values, objectives, and norms of policing that have occurred over recent decades, which, between them, have contributed to some significant changes in the ways that detectives are trained and investigations are controlled and carried out. Theoretically and empirically informed, Taking Care of Business addresses contemporary police culture, detective work, and drug law enforcement. Its timely character also has relevance with respect to some highly salient issues in the current social, economic, and political climate regarding operational policing and drug control policy.