Humour, sexual harassment, and police managers´ discretionary practices

Abstract

In this article, we describe and analyse police managers’ response to incidents of gender and sexual harassment as they play out in a police workplace context. The aim is to examine managers’ supervisory discretion in safeguarding employees’ legal rights, through three research questions: (1) What implicit understandings of sexual harassment, in the organisation, are made visible by managers´ approach to harassment (2) what do these implicit problem understandings mean for which incidents become legitimate and illegitimate experiences of harassment in the organisation and (3) which types of harassment incidents are employees protected against? Based on two cases of harassment, observed during 6 months of fieldwork, we explore and analyse humour and managers’ power of definition, applying socio-legal perspectives on implementation of laws and rights in a work context. Through this, small incidents of everyday harassment become visible and highlight the role of police managers in transforming policy to action.