The contemporary policing landscape is challenging traditional, hierarchical working arrangements as the police respond to new and more complex demands. Scholars have long recognized police occupational culture as a barrier to organizational change. Rank-centric cultural conventions conflict with alternative, democratic forms of working. This article introduces the concept of Rank-Neutral Space to describe an emerging practice where police officers navigate the hierarchical-laden culture to bring about change. In theorizing Rank-Neutral Space, I bring together perspectives from the sociology of space and findings from a qualitative study of police leadership, to define the space as a site of resistance and conformity, to capture the complexity of reform in the police as both processes of change and continuity.
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