Description
This pioneering study of policing in London was carried out by the independent Policy Studies Institute at the request of Scotland Yard. Described as 'an extraordinary piece of work by New Society, as 'constructive as well as critical' by The Times and as 'an urgent call for a radical re-assessment of just what sort of police force we need' by the Morning Star, it is 'the most detailed and important study of a British police force yet published' (New Society).
The authors set out to help create the conditions in which there can be reasoned public debate about policing policies and practices. The study shows, with a mass of detailed description and vivid insight, what ordinary police officers actually do, how they behave towards the public, how people respond, what are people's views about the police and policing, and how these views are influenced by their personal experience. It sets out to understand policing behaviour in terms of the structures within which the police operate: the constraints imposed by the law and procedure as they interpret them, the shape and culture of the organisation, the appearance and the reality of police management and the informal structure of objectives, norms, rewards and punishments that has developed. After criticising many aspects of policing in London in the early 1980s, the authors conclude with a series of practical suggestions for ways in which actual change in the pattern and quality of policing could be brought about.
The findings are based on a survey of 2,420 Londoners (including a substantial number of young people and of black people) and on extensive observation of police work by the authors, who accompanied groups of police officers over a two-year period. A survey of 1,770 police officers and a study (by participant observation) of a group of young black people were also carried out and are referred to in this volume.
ISBN:0566008513
