How Chief Police Officers and Senior Leaders from Other Institutions in the Policing Landscape in England and Wale Understand the Application of the Concept of Vulnerability to Policing and Its Implications for Police Legitimacy, 2019-2021

The data deposited includes transcripts of six interviews with three chief police officers and three very senior leaders from other institutions in the wider policing landscape. Interviewees’ legitimating accounts based on a moral duty to use power to protect people, particularly the most vulnerable, are assessed. It is argued that the emphasis on protecting the vulnerable is new and reflects wider societal concerns, but it is also a response to a perceived need for a revised prioritisation system to cope with changed demands and previous police failings. Chief officers’ interpretations of vulnerability changed between 2016 and 2021, from predominantly strand-based understandings (located in the type of offender, offence, or victim), to stances that are more neutral about the nature of the threat, and which tend to accept the universality of vulnerability. But the ambiguity of the discourse of vulnerability, confusion about what it means, and its emotional content, may continue to be convenient for chief officers in asserting a privileged standpoint when advancing and legitimating their preferences for the use of police power and resources.