The Hidden Cost of Data Production: Digital Reporting Pressures and the Consequences for Street-Level Police Work

Research has shown that workers cope with the bureaucratic pressures to report by separating situated work from reporting. An important assumption is that workers maintain the discretion to perform their situated work as needed. In contemporary society, digital reporting systems are changing the role and nature of reporting, yet not much is known about what this means for situated work. In our 31-month ethnographic study of the Dutch police, we identify that, with digital reporting systems, new pressures emerge - i.e., enforced accountability, reductionist labeling, and expected transparency - which remove the situated discretion that police officers depend on to do their work. To deal with this, they adopt three coping strategies: becoming invisible, hiving off responsibility, and performing front stage. While these coping strategies help officers alleviate reporting pressures and restore their situated discretion, they also contradict some of their core occupational values and erode their occupational meaning.