There is in policing an exclusivity in terms of understanding the job by having done it that closely parallels the culture of the Armed Forces, where individual credibility can often depend on a judicious mixture of experience, track record, postings, ‘hard’ jobs and perceptions of that individual's achievements. Like soldiers, police officers tend to have little time for abstract theory and seldom pursue knowledge for its own sake, in the sense of ‘pure’ academic research. There are exceptions of course, but they are rare. What police officers tend to respond to is experiential learning, in which the application of practical knowledge to skill and thence to situation is highly regarded. There is a need for knowledge in policing: of the criminal law, of police procedure and police powers, and of the criminal justice system for instance, but these can often be subordinated to what ‘works’ in a given situation. It follows from this that the police value those who have applied skills, such as forensic investigators or skilled interviewers, and correspondingly have little time for ‘outsiders’ who have not experienced policing in some way or who do not bring valued skills to bear on a situation.

Moving from the attitude of the police in general to the attitudes of chief officers, it is not difficult to find the same exclusivity applied to police command, particularly if it concerns the risks around someone being appointed as a chief officer from outside:

Interviewee 39: […] within minutes, such a person would be gripping the rail in the Crown Court facing a charge of corporate manslaughter.