Transformations of Policing

Transformations of Policing returns to the central issues discussed in 1983's 'People and Police in London', the largest and most detailed study of a police force and its relations with the public that has yet been undertaken in Britain. It considers whether the main conclusions need to be revised in light of constant changes to the political, legal, managerial, technological and social framework of policing. 'People and Police in London' is still the largest and most detailed study of a police force and its relations with the public that has yet been undertaken in Britain. The twenty-three years since its publication has seen a constantly-accelerating rate of change in the legal framework of policing, in the arrangements for democratic accountability of the police, in the technologies involved in crime and policing, in management structures and methods in the police service, in financial control systems imposed by central government and in methods of assessing police performance. Over the same period, crime control has moved from the bottom to the top of the political agenda, leading to increasing pressure on the police to be seen to be effective. Transformations of Policing returns to the central issues discussed in 1983 and considers whether the main conclusions need to be revised in the light of what has happened since. It also reviews areas of debate and research that have emerged more recently and highlights areas of turbulence that are creating fundamentally different patterns from before and raising genuinely new questions. Contents: Preface to the series; Preface and acknowledgements; Looking back on Police and People in London, Alistair Henry; The trajectory of 'private policing', Les Johnston; Police ethnography in the house of serious and organized crime, James Sheptycki; Policing ethnic minorities, Alistair Henry; Public order: then and now, P.A.J. Waddington; 'Reassurance policing: feeling is believing', Adam Crawford; The architecture of policing: towards a new theoretical model of the role of constraint-based compliance in policing, Richard Jones; Policing London: twenty years on, Mike Hough; Managing the police through a time of change, Peter Neyroud; The future of policing in Britain, Tim Newburn; Policing our future, Clifford Shearing; New challenges to police legitimacy, David J. Smith; Index. About the Author: David J. Smith is Honorary Professor of Criminology at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Alistair Henry is based in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and a member of the Centre for Law and Society.