How the duty to report prevents reporting and reinforces silence around sexual harassment within the police

Abstract

Sworn police officers have a duty to report any legal offence that comes to their attention, and refraining from reporting constitutes misconduct. This article discusses the implications of the duty to report for handling sexual harassment within the Swedish police force. The discussion is based on interviews with police officers and on testimonies from the 2017 #metoo call from Swedish police. We show that the duty to report contributes to silence about experiences of sexual harassment, since reporting might initiate a legal process and break ‘the blue code of silence’. The duty to report implies an approach to sexual harassment along a criminal logic, focusing on legal classification, documentation of proof, and witness tampering. This criminal logic individualizes sexual harassment, raises the bar for what is interpreted as harassment, and closes off alternative approaches to prevent organizational factors that enable harassment.