POLICING EMOTIONS: EMOTIONAL ‘MASKING’ AND ‘FRONTING’ OF SINGAPORE’S FRONT-LINE POLICE OFFICERS

Abstract

Police officers have the duty of enforcing the law objectively and rationally, and it is perhaps for this reason that some people consider them to be quite emotionless (Martin 1999: 112; Lennie, Crozier Sarah and Sutton 2019: 9). After all, as observed by the author in this thesis, they do not display the typical outlooks that are naturally experienced by people in emotionally intense situations. They are seen running towards danger instead of away from it. They sometimes inflict harm on citizens, but do not appear sorry for it. They encounter many emotional people and horrifying incidents, but yet remain composed. Intrigued by this phenomenon, the author joined 70 front-line officers of a Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC), executed their everyday policing duties with them, and chatted with them in between responding to cases and after official hours of duty. Upon the conclusion of fieldwork, it was found that behind the seemingly unfeeling front of police officers actually lies an emotional dynamism which are deliberately and strategically hidden away on the job. Such conjuring and masking away of emotions on the job is what Hochschild (2003) refers to as emotional labour. Inspired by this theory, this thesis documents the strategies of emotional labour employed by police officers, and the values of doing so to policing.