Policing in an Age of Austerity: A postcolonial perspective

In the current context of financial retrenchment on public-sector budgets, public policing in England and Wales today faces the prospect of dramatic change. While the question of role and function has been the bedrock of classical sociological theorizing on police, this book grounds such theorising in explicating how British policing has arisen through a schismatic process, why it is in a present mess, and what it should be doing in the future The central themes of this critical text are An analysis of the congeries of roles and functions that our public police in England and Wales currently undertake and how they got there An examination of the effect of arbitrary reduction in police services, including a reading of policing politics in an age of austerity A comparative critique of the British Brand of Policing The development of a normative manifesto for the future of British Policing. This book will be essential for reading for students, researchers and academics alike in criminology, police studies and public and social policy.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction – turning over the pebble 2. The state of the police of the state 3. Smoke and mirrors - the cuts in policing and the technological fix 4. Commodifying state policing – the export of the ‘UK Police plc’ brand 5. Policing the Other through law 6. Policing the Other: continuity of practice from St Giles to Dale Farm, Epilogue: treading the thin blue line.

About the Author :
Mike Brogden is Honorary Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Lancaster. He has served as an advisor to several governments on policing matters, and inter alia, served as EU Security Advisor for the first democratic election of 1994 in South Africa. Graham Ellison is Senior Lectuerer in Criminology, School of Law, Queen's University, Belfast. He has been a Senior International Expert to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Turkey in respect of the civilian oversight of the police there.

Review :
In an era of circulating clichés and unexamined presuppositions about policing, this iconoclastic book, written clearly and crisply, demands and rewards close attention. Setting their arguments in the current context of austerity and increased demands for democratic policing, Brogden and Ellison survey the amazing, perhaps startling, perks and privileges of top command in the U.K, and place current practices squarely in the swirling world of local, national and global policing. In a compact and forceful manner they identify the key contradictions in modern policing- the claims made and the realities of observed policing. Their narrative emanates a socio-historical awareness of the heritage, not alone from Peel, of ideas about proper policing. Richly documented with data and enlivened by historical detail, the book sets a striking and high standard for future policing scholarship. Peter K. Manning, Elmer V.H. and Eileen M. Brooks Professor of criminology and criminal justice, Northeastern University, Boston. This is a major achievement by two pre-eminent scholarly experts on policing. It is the first detailed analysis of the implictions for policing of the post-2007 economic crash and the regime of 'austerity'. But it goes beyond this in providing an account of contemporary policing that is theoretically sophisticated, brimming with policy implications, and grounded in a deep knowledge of the research literature. It should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in policing. Robert Reiner, Emeritus Professor of Criminology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.