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Part 1
Theory and principles underpinning plural policing
This section examines the theories and principles that underpin the idea of plural policing. It considers the rise of such an approach, reflecting on the social and political pressures that have seen the introduction and acceptance of different agencies becoming involved in activities hitherto only thought to be carried out by the ‘public’ police.
An important starting point for this section is to discuss just what we mean when we use the terms ‘police’ and ‘policing’, as it is important to separate their definitions and understand how they differ from one another. The section will consider the rise in plural policing, private policing and other forms of quasi-policing activity, not just in England and Wales but also in other European countries.
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ONE
Who are the police and what is policing?
Introduction: Taking the police out of policing
As Reiner (2010) points out, the term ‘police’ is primarily used to denote a body of people patrolling public spaces in blue uniforms, with a broad mandate of crime control, order maintenance and some negotiable social service functions. This appears to be a ‘common sense’ understanding, but to understand the nature and role of the term ‘policing’ we need to engage in a deeper analysis of its function within a given society.
Indeed, there is a school of thought that suggests a prerequisite for social order is the need for a police organisation; yet Reiner further suggests that many societies have, in fact, existed without a formal police force of any kind. The ‘police’ are therefore not found in every society, but ‘policing’ may still be undertaken by a number of different processes and institutional arrangements. What we come to understand as the state-sanctioned police agency today is only one example of policing.
The idea of ‘the police’ is therefore a relatively modern concept, while ‘policing’ is an old one (Johnston, 1992). Prior to the 18th century, the term ‘police’ was used to explain the broad function of ‘policing’ – that is, the general regulation of the government, morals or economy of a city or country. The word ‘police’ is derived from the Greek word ‘polis’ meaning ‘city state’. ‘Policing’ thus referred to a socio-political function, instead of a formal legal one, that was exercised in any civil society, not just within the confines of the state. It was only in the mid-18th century that the word ‘police’ began to be used in its ‘continental’ sense in Great Britain, to refer to the specific functions of crime prevention and order maintenance. This idea is reinforced by Radzinowicz (1956), who states that by the middle of the 18th century there was already a growing realisation that the traditional arrangements for keeping the peace had become inadequate. However, it was a further 75 years before a radical break was effected and a modern police established with the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. Indeed, when the word ‘police’ was first introduced into England in the early part of the 18th century, it was regarded with the utmost suspicion, and was widely believed to be part of the sinister force that held France in its grip. In the early 1720s in England, the word was in fact almost unknown. However, by the time of John Fielding, the word ‘police’ began to gain currency, and Fielding began using it in the title of a pamphlet he wrote in 1758 (Fielding, cited in Radzinowicz [1956]). He subsequently used the word in other publications, and it gradually became used to define not just government policies – as it had in Fielding’s original publication – but also the regulation of such policies. As the 18th century progressed, its use became more familiar and the term began to refer to themes more akin to its modern meaning, including the maintenance of good order and the prevention or detection of offences.
It is important to understand the differentiation between the terms ‘police’ and ‘policing’, especially as we enter a period of profound change for the police organisation. Indeed, Lister and Jones (2015) believe that the recognition of the conceptual and empirical decoupling of ‘police’ and ‘policing’ has generated a breadth of scholarly debate concerning how we might make sense of contemporary systems of crime control, regulation, social ordering and so on, as well as understanding the implication that arises for relations between state, market and civil society.
Defining a definition
While it would be easy to simply accept Waddington’s (1999) answer to the question ‘What is policing?’ as being that which police officers do, it is in fact a far more complex role. We have seen that we need to separate out the term ‘police’ from the much broader term ‘policing’ in order to understand current changes in our society. However, in order to assist us in understanding and negotiating change in terms of policing, we need to consider a fully working definition of ‘policing’ as it relates all those involved in its application.
In truth, Waddington does consider a more serious definition when he concludes that policing is the authority of the state over the civil population and that this authority is based on the monopoly of legitimate coercion, which means the police will ask someone to do or not to do something and they will normally comply. If they do not comply, the police will force them to do so. This agrees with Klockars’ (1985) earlier definition of the police organisation as being ‘institutions or individuals given the general right to use coercive force by the state within the state’s domestic territory’ (Klockars, 1985, p 12).
In terms of the application of such a definition, the American sociologist Egon Bittner (1970, p 30) described such incidents as situations where ‘something ought not to be happening and about which something ought to be done now’. The important word in this phrase is ‘now’, which indicates that all of these situations have the feature that they cannot wait for resolution. The crucial element in Bittner’s discussion is therefore that of time. With the general right to use coercive force, the police are able to do something ‘now’, as the police are able to overcome resistance by use of their legal powers of coercion.
What is interesting about Bittner’s idea is that the ‘something’ that is happening that needs attention remains undefined. So it may include many incidents that on the surface may not be seen as police business but that the police become involved in and resolve.
If ‘police’ is a term specific to a group of individuals charged with special crime and disorder reduction powers, then ‘policing’ is a much wider concept and involves many other agencies.
Crawford (2014) sees policing as the outcome of a constellation of actors, agencies and processes both within and beyond the police organisation. Policing therefore can be defined as the wider application of many agencies in order to support the functions of the state in reducing crime and disorder. It includes the work of educational bodies that attempt to prevent crime through the education of citizens away from this activity, as well as community cohesion activities that promote active citizenry and volunteerism. Private security companies and other agencies are also member of the wider ‘constellation’ of bodies that work to support the state. However, private security, according to Crawford, tends to be more instrumental than moral, in the sense that it is concerned more with loss prevention and risk reduction than with law enforcement and conviction of criminals. Nonetheless, both the activities of the police and of those involved in the wider process of policing are of course engaged with the idea of social control.
Social control as function
Traditionally, when one thinks of the role of the state with the visible idea of social control, one immediately thinks of the uniformed police officer. However, not all policing is carried out by the police, but involves a diverse range of agencies and organisations. The term social control is often used to indicate a form of organised reaction to deviant behaviour. This approach is in part based on the work of Stanley Cohen, who defined social control as being those ‘organised responses to crime, delinquency and allied forms of deviant and/or socially problematic behaviour which are actually conceived of as such, whether in the reactive sense (after the putative act has taken place or the actor been identified) or in the proactive sense (to prevent the act)’ (Cohen, 1985, p 3).
According to this definition, social control refers to the mechanisms used to regulate the conduct of people who are seen as deviant, criminal, worrying or troublesome in some way by others. Importantly for us, the ways in which different cultures understand and respond to different forms of problematic behaviour changes and alters. However, whatever the factors that combine to explain and deal with problematic behaviour are, the main objective is to control behaviour that is seen to be problematic or deviant in some way. Innes (2003) points out that although Cohen’s definition may be restricting in its scope as it focuses on deviant acts, it is sufficiently flexible to allow for social control strategies to be implemented by state agencies or by employees of private corporations. Indeed, it could be argued that much work in this area has been overly concerned with the role of the state and legal institutions, ignoring the fact that state action (of which the police are one example) is perhaps only a small part of how social actions are controlled in everyday life. Reiner (2010) appears to concur with this idea that police cannot be seen as coterminous with social control but must be seen as a specific aspect of it. Policing does not encompass all activities directed at achieving social order; other agencies work towards achieving this goal as well.
Democratic policing
The influence of Peelian principles
When discussing modern policing, particularly in terms of the democratic policing model, one cannot ignore the fact that much has been written concerning the influence of Sir Robert Peel, who was Home Secretary in 1829. Countries such as the US claim to have introduced their ideas about the police and policing from the principles allegedly invoked by Peel (Peak and Glensor, 1996). It is he, along with the first two police commissioners for London, Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne, who are generally credited with the introduction of the first professional police forces in England and Wales from which the police of many other countries developed. One concept in particular that is regularly referred to is Peel’s principles of policing. This has recently become a topical issue again as the very nature of police and policing in England and Wales is changing; indeed, the fundamentals of community policing and the democratic style of policing are often cited as owing a great debt to Peel’s ideas. Peel’s principles are summarised in the box below.
Box 1.1: Peel’s principles of policing
1. The basic mission of the police is to prevent crime.
2. The ability of the police to perform their duty is dependent upon public approval of police existence.
3. The police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntarily observing to keep the law.
4. The degree of public cooperation diminishes when physical force and compulsion is made in achieving police objectives.
5. Police should be impartial, friendly, and courteous and use humour and be ready to sacrifice themselves to protect and preserve life.
6. Physical force should be used only as necessary to secure observance of the law.
7. The police are the public and the public are the police.
8. The police should direct their actions towards this function and should not act as judge and jury.
9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
Source: Adapted from Melville Lee (1901).
The general thrust of the principles concerns crime prevention and the concept of working with the community. Indeed, these principles are often quoted as being the foundation of the later community policing approach (Peak and Glensor 1996). However, despite extensive reference to these principles by many authors such as Melville Lee (1901) and Reith (1956), the fact is that only secondary sources exist for these ideas attributed to Peel; their exact origins remain shrouded in mystery. Indeed, Lentz and Chaire (2007), in their extensive examination of the literature surrounding the principles, go so far as to say they are largely the invention of 20th-century textbook authors and not directly attributable to the invention of the police in 1829, while Emsley (2014) suggests they have developed a mythical quality of their own.
Irrespective of this claim, the principles remain a fundamental plank within the discourse of modern policing and its future in a pluralised environment. Questions arise concerning whether or not these principles can be maintained within a new police paradigm, involving diverse agencies and a greater involvement of non-police personnel with a different form of accountability. Despite these questions, however, the principles themselves are commensurate with the idea we refer to as the democratic style of policing.
Democratic-style policing
The British police approach is widely associated with the idea of a democratic policing model (for example, see Independent Police Commission, 2013). Though contested, the democratic policing model is premised on several key assumptions that will be explored in more depth later. As Dunleavy and O’Leary (1987) point out, the concept of democracy is best understood through its Greek roots, with demos meaning ‘the citizen body’ and cracy meaning ‘the rule of’. Therefore the great advantage of public policing in democratic countries is that it is accountable to every citizen through the mechanisms of representative government (Bayley and Shearing, 2005). This in turn means that the polic...
