Storytelling at the Police Station: The Canteen Culture Revisited

Police storytelling is an understudied aspect of police culture(s). In the literature, two views can be found. One view is that storytelling helps officers to learn the craft of policing. Another view is that storytelling is merely part of a ‘canteen culture’ that deals with the lack of excitement in real police work. On the basis of a two-year ethnographic study in a Dutch police station, I claim that the practice of storytelling is a crucial part of everyday police station life. However, the work police stories do and the forms they have differ from one backstage context to the next.