This is a critical evaluation of the role of policing in maintaining public order and upholding civil and democratic rights. This is the first study based on systematic observation of how the police actually handle protest and potential or actual disorder. This book is intended for researchers and students in sociology, criminology, political science and law. It should also appeal to a professional market including the police, practising lawyers, civil liberties groups and trade unions.

The SAGE Dictionary of Policing is the definitive reference tool for students, academics and practitioners in police studies. The Dictionary delivers a complete guide to policing in a comprehensive, easy-to-use format. Contributions by 110 of the world′s leading academics and practitioners based in 14 countries map out all the key concepts and topics in the field. Each entry includes: " a concise definition " distinctive features of the concept " a critical evaluation " associated concepts, directing readers to linked entries " key readings, enabling readers to take their knowledge further. In addition, The SAGE Dictionary of Policing offers online resources, including free access to key articles and links to useful websites. This is a must-have for students, lecturers, researchers and professionals in police studies, criminology and criminal justice. It is the ideal companion to the SAGE Dictionary of Criminology: together the two books provide the most authoritative and comprehensive guide available. Alison Wakefield is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of New South Wales. She was previously based at City University, London. Jenny Fleming is Professor at the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies, University of Tasmania.

Police do not and cannot prevent crime. This alarming thesis is explored by David Bayley, one of the most prolific and internationally renowned authorities on criminal justice and policing, in Police for the Future. Providing a systematic assessment of the performance of the police institution as a whole in preventing crime, the study is based on exhaustive research, interviews, and first hand observation in five countries--Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States. It analyzes what police are accomplishing in modern democratic societies, and asks whether police organizations are using their resources effectively to prevent crime. Bayley assesses the impediments to effective crime prevention, describes the most promising reforms currently being tested by the police, and analyzes the choices that modern societies have with respect to creating truly effective police forces. He concludes with a blueprint for the creation of police forces that can live up to their promise to reduce crime and enhance public safety. Written for both the general public and the specialist in criminal justice, Police for the Future offers a unique multinational perspective on one of society's most basic institutions.

This book draws on a wide range of studies of collective conflict and the policing of crowds and social movements to provide an understanding of the causes and management of public disorder. It seeks to describe and explain the processes by which the police interpret and respond to instances of public disorder, to account for variations in their strategies and tactics, and to identify the conditions in which police interventions (or inaction) may serve to enhance or reduce the potential for wider confrontation. In addition to providing a penetrating review and critique of relevant theory, the author employs a combination of existing studies and first-hand research to explore the lessons, both practical and theoretical, of recent examples of British and American urban disorders, the policing of worldwide anti-globalisation protests (such as the British G8 protests of 2005), and the activities of British football fans abroad between 1990 and 2006. These case studies are brought together to provide an engaging and sharply focused explanation and evaluation of contemporary police methods for avoiding or controlling public disorder. Policing Public Disorder will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in policing, crowd behaviour and issues around public order and disorder.

The police are perhaps the most visible representation of government. They are charged with what has been characterized as an "impossible" mandate -- control and prevent crime, keep the peace, provide public services -- and do so within the constraints of democratic principles. The police are trusted to use deadly force when it is called for and are allowed access to our homes in cases of emergency. In fact, police departments are one of the few government agencies that can be mobilized by a simple phone call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are ubiquitous within our society, but their actions are often not well understood. The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing brings together research on the development and operation of policing in the United States and elsewhere. Accomplished policing researchers Michael D. Reisig and Robert J. Kane have assembled a cast of renowned scholars to provide an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the institution of policing. The different sections of the Handbook explore policing contexts, strategies, authority, and issues relating to race and ethnicity. The Handbook also includes reviews of the research methodologies used by policing scholars and considerations of the factors that will ultimately shape the future of policing, thus providing persuasive insights into why and how policing has developed, what it is today, and what to expect in the future. Aimed at a wide audience of scholars and students in criminology and criminal justice, as well as police professionals, the Handbook serves as the definitive resource for information on this important institution.

This is the first book to challenge the broken-windows theory of crime, which argues that permitting minor misdemeanors, such as loitering and vagrancy, to go unpunished only encourages more serious crime. The theory has revolutionized policing in the United States and abroad, with its emphasis on policies that crack down on disorderly conduct and aggressively enforce misdemeanor laws. The problem, argues Bernard Harcourt, is that although the broken-windows theory has been around for nearly thirty years, it has never been empirically verified. Indeed, existing data suggest that it is false. Conceptually, it rests on unexamined categories of law abiders and disorderly people and of order and disorder, which have no intrinsic reality, independent of the techniques of punishment that we implement in our society. How did the new order-maintenance approach to criminal justice--a theory without solid empirical support, a theory that is conceptually flawed and results in aggressive detentions of tens of thousands of our fellow citizens--come to be one of the leading criminal justice theories embraced by progressive reformers, policymakers, and academics throughout the world? This book explores the reasons why. It also presents a new, more thoughtful vision of criminal justice.

Drawing on a wide variety of source material from art archaeology, administrative documents, Egyptian papyri, laws Jewish and Christian religious texts and ancient narratives this book provides a comprehensive overview of Roman imperial policing practices.

This textbook addresses existing gaps in police research, education, and training, and provides guidance on how to respond to and address the vulnerability that arises in policing practice. It guides students through the conceptual and also the practical issues of managing vulnerability in policing with case studies and practitioners’ views from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the US, Canada, France, and beyond to the Maldives, China, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It includes key concepts, views from the front-line, further reading and activities in each chapter. Policing Practices and Vulnerable People is aimed at researchers and practitioners working with police. While focussed on democratic policing practices, this book includes case studies and practitioners’ views from a wide range of approaches, including those from the Global South. This book provides readers with a framework that can assist them in converting conceptual knowledge to critical, ethical policing practice.

Written in the context of the #BlackLivesMatter protests, this book explores why law enforcement responses to a public health emergency are prioritised over welfare provision and what this tells us about the state’s criminal justice institutions.