Call centres in the police force are restrictive information systems which tend to present call
operators with constraints that they need to overcome using their experience in order to offer
better services to the public. This paper is looking at how elements of human agency come in
to play and help users’ enactment against restrictive technologies. Information systems
research on human agency has been mainly focused on the examination of whether agency
lies within human or machines or both while in this paper we take a different approach and
we clearly describe how human agency is enacted in practice. We use empirical data from
contact centres and operational rooms of five UK police forces. After extensive observations
we present how police call handlers manipulate digital information efficiently through human
agency. The theoretical framework is based on the three elements of agency theory (iteration,
projectivity and practical evaluation) The research findings assert that call handlers
overcome the restrictions of the system by forming human-digital networks and using mental
structures from their past experience in order to cope with the task at hand. The paper
concludes by drawing implications for theory and practice and suggests future research
directions
