The authors wish to stress that of prime importance in shaping the material in this and subsequent chapters is an appreciation of the uniqueness of the police organisation. It is this appreciation that in turn will help to inform police education at all levels. This needs to be emphasised from the start and throughout because, since the rise of New Public Management and the widespread reform of public services, there has been a tendency to view the police as simply one of many public service organisations that badly needed to change their ways by adopting the values and practices of private companies (Leishman et al, 2000). There can be little doubt that this approach has had a beneficial influence in certain respects; but it encapsulates a model that does not always fit public service organisations in general and the police organisation in particular.

The nature of policing

This section summarises the highly specific factors that need to be taken into account in relation to the nature of policing which may be viewed as common knowledge in academia. Unfortunately, these factors are not always taken into serious account by politicians and officials when promoting institutional and organisational change. The police agency enjoys exceptional powers as the only 24/7 operational institution – which is uniformed, visible and accessible – with the authority to intervene directly in citizens’ lives, deprive them of their freedom or even their lives. An officer's ‘authoritative intervention’ (Bayley, 1994) in people's affairs is based on the (near) monopoly of violence (Bittner, 1970, 1974). In the UK, this also means primacy over the use of potentially fatal force, including that by the military. This alone makes the policing enterprise unique among public institutions. This key feature makes the interaction between police and citizens highly symbolic, with the police representing the ‘state made flesh’ in encounters. Crucially, those powers of intervention are most likely to be exercised in first instance by those low in the hierarchy who may have to take vital decisions in relative isolation often at times of danger to themselves and/or others. This is quite unlike most business organisations, although it does have parallels with other ‘frontline’ social and emergency agencies (Muir, 1977; Lipsky, 1980).