AbstractThe experiences of police officers who have retired from the police service have rarely comprised the focus of empirical studies in England and Wales. Drawing on the findings of a survey of former police officers, this article examines the circumstances within which officers leave the service and aspects of the transition to retirement. We find that that certain individual, role and organisational factors come together to explain how the transition to retirement is experienced by police officers. We conceptualise police retirement as a multi-dimensional process during which a number of factors may come into play and have different effects depending on the circumstances in which retirement occurs. Findings are considered in light of wider conceptualisations of the process of retirement and implications are discussed.

Published sources claim that ‘one in six’ properties are at overall flood risk in E ngland and W ales. However, an attempt to replicate that proportion using publicly available data proved difficult, estimating one in five properties in E ngland and one in four properties in W ales at overall flood risk, and even higher risk estimates for non‐residential properties alone, especially in W ales. For comparative purposes, a primary analysis was conducted which found that the estimated fluvial and tidal flood risk for properties (residential and non‐residential) is one in twelve in E ngland and one in nine in W ales. Discussions include the importance of the unit of analysis (people/properties) and also of property type (households/businesses). This paper reveals several discrepancies in published data and proportions at risk, and will emphasise that if ‘good evidence’ is needed to inform policy, then we need to be very specific about what kinds of risk, and to whom, we are reporting.

Previous research has shown that many vulnerable communities experience disproportional exposure to flood risk. This paper, though, is the first to look at broad ethnic/racial group differences in the United Kingdom. It contends that differences in culture and language, especially those of new immigrants, bestow vulnerabilities on such communities, resulting in a lack of knowledge that enables people to be aware, to be prepared, or to recover expediently after a flood emergency. Using UK 2011 Census data and Environment Agency flood maps, the paper demonstrates that it is the non-white communities in Wales that confront the most disproportionate level of flood risk: 23 per cent as compared to 11.4 per cent of their white neighbours. In contrast, the difference in flood risk between white and non-white ethnic/racial groups in regions of England is within a range of plus or minus two per cent, except for in Yorkshire and The Humber where white populations face a much greater risk of flooding.

This article reports the findings of a large-scale survey (N = 10,897) which sought to reveal patterns of injury on duty (IoD) and perceptions of organisational and other support amongst serving police personnel in England and Wales. We found that IoD is a multi-faceted issue incorporating wide-ranging physical and psychological injuries and illnesses. We also found that, by their own testimony, IoD is not experienced equally amongst police personnel. Reported experiences of IoD together with satisfaction with, and priorities for, support in the aftermath of injury were shaped by injury type, the role played in the police organisation and the individual characteristics of police personnel, notably, gender. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed.

This article considers the contribution that qualitative software can make to ‘opening up’ open-ended question (‘OEQ’) data from surveys. While integrating OEQ data with the analysis of fixed response items is a challenge, it is also an endeavour for which qualitative software offers considerable support. For survey researchers who wish to derive more analytic value from OEQ data, qualitative software can be a useful resource. We profile the systematic use of qualitative software for such purposes, and the procedures and practical considerations involved. The discussion is illustrated by examples derived from a survey dataset relating to environmental risk in the UK.

This paper demonstrates the use of mixed methods discovery techniques to explore public perceptions of community safety and risk, using computational techniques that combine and integrate layers of information to reveal connections between community and place. Perceived vulnerability to crime is conceptualised using an etic/emic framework. The etic “outsider” viewpoint imposes its categorisation of vulnerability not only on areas (“crime hot spots” or “deprived neighbourhoods”) but also on socially constructed groupings of individuals (the “sick” or the “poor”) based on particular qualities considered relevant by the analyst. The range of qualities is often both narrow and shallow. The alternative, emic, “insider” perspective explores vulnerability based on the meanings held by the individuals informed by their lived experience. Using recorded crime data and Census-derived area classifications, we categorise an area in Southern England from an etic viewpoint. Mobile interviews with local residents and police community support officers and researcher-led environmental audits provide qualitative emic data. GIS software provides spatial context to analytically link both quantitative and qualitative data. We demonstrate how this approach reveals hidden sources of community resilience and produces findings that explicate low level social disorder and vandalism as turns in a “dialogue” of resistance against urbanisation and property development.

Access Grid (AG) is a state-of-the-art video conferencing system that operates over computer networks such as the Internet. In the research sphere it has principally been used to conduct meetings of natural scientists in large international collaborations, such as physicists collaborating over the Large Hadron Collider. Social scientists have recently begun exploring the use of AG to conduct 'virtual fieldwork' where researchers carry out interviews or moderate group discussions involving participants at remote sites. There have also been experiments in using AG to deliver social research methods training and to facilitate meetings between social researchers and government researchers who are collaborating on research projects. This article provides a quantitative analysis of the experiences of a sample of participants in such AG sessions. It finds a high degree of satisfaction with the technical affordances of the medium, and identifies differences in perspective according to whether a session is research-oriented or has a 'real world' purpose.

This paper explores the environmental inequalities of living in the floodplains of England and Wales and the differences in flood awareness of those 'at risk'. An area comparison is made between an etic, objective flood risk exposure, and an emic, subjective perception of that risk by social class. In all areas except the Midlands, the working classes were more likely to reside in the floodplains; the greatest exposure inequality is seen in the North East and Anglian regions. Flood awareness in the Anglian regions was much lower than average, but there were no significant class differences. In the Thames region, despite equal flood risk exposure between classes, the most deprived displayed the least awareness of flood risk. In the North East, inequalities in the distribution of flood risk exposure accompanied inequalities in perception, resulting in the least aware and most deprived experiencing the greatest flood risk.

In recent times there has been a considerable growth in research projects using more than one method. This has led to renewed debate about the issues involved in using multiple methods in a single study, including questions concerning the different ways in which methods and data could or should be brought together. However, within these debates there is a tendency to focus attention on designs which bring together qualitative and quantitative methods, leaving aside research designs which utilise multiple qualitative methods, perhaps on the assumption that ‘qualitative data’ is an homogeneous category. In this chapter we examine the issues involved in integrating different types of qualitative data generated through three qualitative methods: ‘conventional’ in-depth interviews, photo-elicitation interviews, and narrative interviews. Drawing on data from the PPIMs projecti (Practice and Process in Integrating Methodologies project) - which explored the methodological issues that arise in multi-method and multi-level approaches to investigating the management of vulnerability in everyday life - we specifically focus on the process of achieving integration across these sets of data at the point of analysis and document an approach we call ‘following a thread’ (Moran-Ellis et al, 2004).

Following the severe flood events of 1998 and 2000, the United Kingdom's Environment Agency prioritised the need to increase public flood risk awareness. Drawing on data collected during research undertaken for the Environment Agency, this paper contributes to understanding of one aspect of flood awareness: people's recognition that their property is in an area that is potentially at risk of flooding. Quantitative analyses indicate that class is the most influential factor in predicting flood risk awareness, followed by flood experience and length of time in residence. There are also significant area differences. Our qualitative work explores how those defined as 'at risk' account for their lack of awareness or concern about their risk status. We conclude that the problem is often not simply a lack of awareness, but rather, assessments of local risk based on experience that underestimate the impact of rare or extreme events. We underline the importance of engaging with local perspectives on risk and making local people part of 'awareness-raising' processes.

An outcome-based analysis using surface population models and logistic regression analysis shows that significant inequalities exist between the middle and working classes, and also between the middle classes and the inactive (the unemployed and unclassifiable classes, not the retired), in risk factors associated with flood emergencies in all Environment Agency Regions of England and Wales except the Midlands region. This analysis demonstrates overall inequality is reproduced in both the fluvial and tidal flood plains, although that within the tidal flood plains is especially significant and more pronounced in some areas, especially, in the Eastern regions of England. The paper then discusses whether this inequality is unjust or discriminatory, and considers that further, more process-driven, analysis would be necessary to explore this issue, especially looking at neighbourhood generation processes with respect to migration into and out of areas.

Addressing environmental inequalities is a major theme of the UK Sustainable Development Strategy and one of the three principles of the Environment Agency’s social policy. Understanding more about the inequalities which arise in exposure to flood risk and in the experience of flood events, and developing ways of addressing these inequalities, are important in managing the risk of flooding to people and communities. Aims of the project The main aims of this Environment Agency science project were to: • help the Environment Agency understand the social impacts of flooding and the policy context for addressing them; • examine how flood risk is distributed in relation to patterns of social deprivation in England; • recommend the most effective ways of addressing inequalities in relation to flooding. Methodology A review of the literature on the social impacts of flooding and policy measures relevant to flood risk and environmental inequalities was undertaken. This was supported by a two-day interactive workshop held with stakeholders from within and outside the Environment Agency to discuss the social impacts of flooding. Finally, a GIS-based data analysis using the Environment Agency’s Flood Map 2004 was carried out to examine the deprivation characteristics of populations living within and outside the delineated risk areas in England and the English regions.

Researchers who advocate the use of multiple methods often write interchangeably about ‘integrating’, ‘combining’ and ‘mixing’ methods, sometimes eliding these descriptors with ‘triangulation’, which itself encompasses several meanings. In this article we argue that such an elision is problematic since it obscures the difference between (a) the processes by which methods (or data) are brought into relationship with each other (combined, integrated, mixed) and (b) the claims made for the epistemological status of the resulting knowledge. Drawing on the literature for examples, we set out different rationales for using more than one method, then we develop a definition of integration of methods as a specific kind of relationship among methods. We also discuss different places in the research process where integration can occur: for instance, data from different sources can be integrated in the analysis stage, or findings from different sources at the point of theorizing.

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