Threatened pasts: police officers, heritage practitioners, and victims of heritage crime

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Poyser, B., 2020. Threatened pasts: police officers, heritage practitioners, and victims of heritage crime. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

Heritage crime is a marginalised, misunderstood, and under-researched area of crime. The existing body of literature has largely failed to examine the experiences, attitudes towards, and understandings of heritage crime from the perspective of victims, the police, and heritage practitioners in England and Wales. Employing a qualitatively led mixed methods methodology, this is the first empirical piece of research which examines the lived realities of the victims of heritage crime and those policing the phenomenon. It advances our understanding of how police respond to and navigate the challenges of policing heritage crime, and examines the victims of heritage crime, exploring who they are and how heritage crime impacts upon them.

These issues are confronted within the wider context of police responses to heritage crime and are situated amongst contemporary socio-economic and political issues. The findings reveal that heritage crime is rarely understood by police officers, is often perceived as a policing burden, and is not considered to be an important or serious enough crime to devote police time to. Officers are reluctant to engage in policing an area they do not fully understand, for numerous reasons, including a fear of engaging in an unknown area of crime and a lack of support and training. These issues contribute to a largely poor police response to victims of heritage crime, which contrasts with the acute impact this crime has upon victims.

The research found that there are numerous obstacles which hinder the confident and joined-up policing of heritage crime and the just treatment of its victims. Potential solutions are presented, centring around police officer education and practical methods of improving responses to victims.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Poyser, B.
Date:	July 2020
Rights:	This work is the intellectual property of the author (Note: if there are other owners of the IP, they must also be named here). You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed in the owner(s) of the Intellectual Property Rights.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Law School
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	21 May 2021 10:20
Last Modified:	31 May 2021 15:02
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/42904