Abstract
Public order policing in Britain has rapidly developed as a key issue on the contemporary political agenda. In the process, a number of seemingly inviolable features of both the police as an institution and policing as a set of functional activities have been challenged. The popular image of the British police as avuncular figures endowed with common sense and guided by the doctrine of minimum force now appears less persuasive. In the 1980s, police tactics during industrial disputes, at political demonstrations and during the course of violent street disorders in certain inner city areas, have damaged this sanguine portrait. Armed with new powers, possessing new equipment and co-ordinated on a national basis to combat disorder, they appear unfamiliar and discomfiting: less a part of society, more apart from it.
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Notes
R. Reiner, The Politics of the Police (1985).
M. Joyce, Spending on Law and Order: The Police Service in England and Wales (London: National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 1985).
J.P. Miller and D.E. Luke, Law Enforcement by Public Officials and Special Police Forces (London: Home Office, 1977). This 4-volume study was declassified in 1980.
See S. Spencer, Called to Account (London: NCCL, 1985) and T. Jefferson and R. Grimshaw, Controlling the Constable (London: Muller, 1984). Both provide lucid accounts of the Act, especially in relation to the principle of tripartism.
Sir William Fraser, Postwar Police Developments: Restrospect and Reflections, James Smart Lecture, Strathclyde Police Headquarters (1981).
R. Card, ‘Police Accountability and Control Over the Police’, Bramshill Journal, 1 (1979) 12.
There are three levels of financial aid:’ small’, ‘large scale’ and ‘major’. See S. Spencer, Police Authorities During the Miners’ Strike (London: Cobden Trust, 1986) and B. Loveday, ‘Central Co-ordination, Police Authorities and the Miners’ Strike’, Political Quarterly, 57 (1986) 60–73.
M. Kettle, ‘The National Reporting Centre and the 1984 Miners’ Strike’, in B. Fine and R. Millar (eds), Policing the Miners’ Strike (1985) p. 30.
See R. Geary, Policing Industrial Disputes: 1893 to 1985 (1985) pp. 67–115.
C. Scorer, S. Spencer and P. Hewitt, The New Prevention of Terrorism Act (London: NCCL, 1985) p. 7.
Sir Robert Mark, The Metropolitan Police and Political Demonstrations, Bramshill, Police Staff College Lecture (17 March, 1975).
Lord Scarman, The Scarman Report: The Brixton Disorders 10–12 April 1981 (1982) p. 153.
Metropolitan Police, Public Order Review: Civil Disturbances 1981–1985 (London: July 1986).
W. Belson, The Public and the Police (London: Harper & Row, 1975).
NOP, Residents’ Views on Policing Needs and Priorities in Eight London Police Divisions: Summary Report (London: NOP, 1983).
Policy Studies Institute, Police and People in London (1983).
For a more detailed account of this process of politicisation see Reiner, The Politics of the Police, pp. 61–82; and M. Kettle, ‘The Politics of Policing and the Policing of Politics’, in P. Hain (ed.), Policing the Police (1980) pp. 9–62.
The Police Federation represents officers from the rank of Constable to Chief Inspector; the Police Superintendents’ Association represents Superintendents and Chief Superintendents; and the Association of Chief Police Officers all ranks above Chief Superintendent. None are conventional trades unions and the police are prohibited by the Police Act 1964 from taking strike action. See R. Reiner, The Blue-Coated Worker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1978).
The relevant research is quoted in R. Reiner, ‘The Politicisation of the Police in Britain’, in M. Punch (ed.), Control in the Police Organisation (1983) p. 147.
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© 1996 John D. Brewer, Adrian Guelke, Ian Hume, Edward Moxon-Browne and Rick Wilford
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Brewer, J.D., Guelke, A., Hume, I., Moxon-Browne, E., Wilford, R. (1996). Great Britain. In: The Police, Public Order and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24647-2_2
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