Known for Noted sociologist | Name Peter Waddington | |
Occupation Professor of Social Policy Employer University of Wolverhampton | ||
Professor Peter A J Waddington is an academic at the University of Wolverhampton, in the United Kingdom. He is known for his research and works on policing and social policy; in particular he is credited for inventing the concept of kettling as a means of preventing harm and disorder at major public order incidents.
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Academic career
Waddington began his career in 1963, as a Police Cadet and later Police Constable, in Birmingham City Police. He left in 1969, after gaining a BSc in Sociology from the University of London. He continued his studies in sociology at the University of Leeds in 1970, and after attaining his master's degree, became a Research Officer (1970–73) and later Research Fellow (1973–74) at Leeds. By 1974, he was lecturing at the university. He completed his PhD in The Occupational Socialization of Prison Governor Grades, at Leeds in 1977.
In 1976, Waddington left for a new post at the University of Reading, where he lectured in sociology until 1992. He then became a reader, and by 1995, was a Professor in the Department of Sociology. He became the Professor of Political Sociology in 1999. In 2005, Waddington moved to the University of Wolverhampton, where he took up the post of Professor of Social Policy, as well as becoming Honorary Director of the Central Institute for the Study of Public Protection, and Director of the History and Governance Research Institute.
Views on public order policing
Speaking at the British Criminology Conference in 1989, Professor Waddington said that he was in favour of the use of CS spray and water cannon as a less violent alternative to the traditional police baton charge, which he saw as of doubtful legality and possibly dangerous.
In a comment piece in The Independent in 1993 after the murder of Patrick Dunn, a police constable in London, Waddington spoke out against calls to arm the police, saying that "Genuine protection is not offered by weaponry, but by the conditions in which the police carry out their task."
In 2009, Waddington wrote about his view of the difference between the 1990 poll tax riots and the 1999 May Day protests. He noted that the use of kettling in 1999 resulted in an orderly dispersal with very few arrests and no injuries: compared to the poll tax riots, this was a good conclusion. In a piece in the Birmingham Post he wrote, "I remain firmly of the view that containment succeeds in restoring order by using boredom as its principle weapon, rather than fear as people flee from on-rushing police wielding batons."