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Conceptual Understandings of Vulnerability

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Policing Practices and Vulnerable People

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Abstract

Vulnerability has been conventionally operationalised in policy and practice as an exception despite evidence of its presence throughout criminal justice processes. Existing approaches to vulnerability in policing have focused on recognised (and recognisable) categories of disadvantage. In doing so, responses have been subject to a ‘competition of suffering’ (Mason-Bish, Disability, Hate Crime and Violence, Routledge, London & New York, 2013) that leave some vulnerable people without the assistance required in policing encounters. In our development of Gilson’s framework, we consider how existing approaches mistakenly present vulnerability as an exception rather than the norm (Gilson, E., The Ethics of Vulnerability: A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice, Routledge, New York, 2014). In this chapter, we offer an alternative conceptualisation that accounts for the precariousness of social life and the situational vulnerability of policing encounters and outlines our universal precautions model to remedy the vulnerability that arises in policing.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are different sign languages around the world, each with their own vocabulary and grammar. Like spoken languages, there are sociolinguistic factors such as regional variations, variations linked to age or even gender. Some countries are home to multiple national signed languages such as Canada, which has American Sign Language (ASL), Inuit Sign Language (IUR), and Maritime Sign Language (MSL, a variation of British Sign Language) and Quebec Sign Language (LSQ). With increasing global migration, a deaf person from one sign language community (e.g., Cambodian Sign Language (CSL)) may move and become part of another (Australian Sign Language, or Auslan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Nicole L. Asquith & Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron

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  1. Nicole L. Asquith
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  2. Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron
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Correspondence to Nicole L. Asquith .

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Asquith, N.L., Bartkowiak-Théron, I. (2021). Conceptual Understandings of Vulnerability. In: Policing Practices and Vulnerable People. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62870-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62870-3_2

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