What matters?

Policing is at a perilous turning-point and its future remains opaque and uncertain. By ‘policing’ is meant primarily, but not exclusively, the activities of the public police: and it is the public police, and all that it stands for, that is at stake at this time. It has been subject to waves of change for several decades, but the pace of change is accelerating. For police chiefs, it must at times seem like frantic gaming, tackling unforeseen hazards while predators await any slip. Except that the ‘game’, and its consequences, are real. Those choices taken under persistent pressure from multiple stakeholders will help determine how the next generation of police will function. This is plainly of profound significance because the police organisation is a unique agency with exceptional powers. Indeed, how it functions in a democracy is of vital importance in the relationship of police to the state and the state to its citizens (Manning, 2010). This in turn has implications for the sort of society we live in and how people are treated by the prime and powerful agents of the criminal justice system. Their conduct can influence whether or not people feel they are living in a just society where the police can be trusted (Lerner, 1980; Cook, 2001; Tyler and Huo, 2002).

In essence, there is widespread and major restructuring with shifting criminal justice landscapes. Within that there is (variously) centralisation and economies of scale; new agencies within and without the police accompanied by a degree of fragmentation; a narrowing of the police mandate with a dominant focus on crime reduction; and a punitive paradigm of justice and incarceration. These have been accompanied by austerity measures yet with relentless pressure for results; intense public and media scrutiny; and alterations in the technology of policing and in the composition of the workforce. Above all, there have been significant developments in accountability embedded in new governance structures.