Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Foreword: a crisis in public policing
- Preface
- one Policing in perilous times: change and leadership
- two Police systems, perspectives and contested paradigms
- three Sea of troubles: the nature of policing
- four When matters become ‘really real’: commanding operations
- five Leadership and leadership development
- six Towards a comprehensive paradigm
- Appendix
- References
- Index
one - Policing in perilous times: change and leadership
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Foreword: a crisis in public policing
- Preface
- one Policing in perilous times: change and leadership
- two Police systems, perspectives and contested paradigms
- three Sea of troubles: the nature of policing
- four When matters become ‘really real’: commanding operations
- five Leadership and leadership development
- six Towards a comprehensive paradigm
- Appendix
- References
- Index
Summary
‘Some people ask why we are reforming the police. For me, the reason is simple. We need them to be the tough, no-nonsense crime-fighters they signed up to become … the test of the effectiveness of the police, the sole objective against which they will be judged … is their success in cutting crime.’ (British Home Secretary Theresa May in 2011, quoted in Millie [2013, p 147]; emphasis added)
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.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- What Matters in Policing?Change, Values and Leadership in Turbulent Times, pp. 1 - 28Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2015