Engaging the citizen

Le résumé fourni par la source

While the above quote from Juvenal, the Roman poet writing around two thousand years ago, may seem clichéd it is still worth reminding ourselves that how we control the police in a democratic society is not a contemporary question. Indeed in the United Kingdom (UK) the sentiment has created debates around both the principle and the practice of control and accountability which have reoccurred with the regularity of cause célèbre since the inception of modern policing in the nineteenth century. Why is this the case and are we any closer to finding a solution that suits all interested parties and allows for more democratic control over the police than we were at the time of Robert Peel? This chapter seeks to provide an answer to the first part of that question by locating the police within the broader philosophical and political context of the state and state power. The second part of the question is more difficult to fully resolve but we will try to provide an answer by offering a review of the UK’s latest attempt to create a truly democratic control mechanism for the police. In sum, the chapter will begin by locating the police and policing within the state, looking particularly at state power and control, the manner in which police manifest such control and the problems that can emerge should state power, as delivered by the police, become too partisan or self-serving. Nothing could be more topical for, as we write, a report has been produced into the South Yorkshire Police Service’s handling of the Hillsborough stadium football disaster in 1989 in which 96 spectators died.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.