Have the British abandoned their commitment to "policing by consent?" The sight of armed and riot police on the streets has led to this question being asked repeatedly over the past decade. However, the secrecy that has surrounded the policy governing armed and public order policing has previously made this topic one of speculation rather than an informed debate. During his three years' extensive research into the Metropolitan Police, P.A.J. Waddington was given unprecedented access to the hitherto secret world of armed and riot policing. Here he provides a detailed description of police...

This analysis of policing throughout the modern world demonstrates how many of the contentious issues surrounding the police in recent years - from paramilitarism to community policing - have their origins in the fundamentals of the police role. The author argues that this results from a fundamental tension within this role. In liberal democratic societies, police are custodians of the state's monopoly of legitimate force, yet they also wield authority over citizens who have their own set of rights.

This ground-breaking book offers a practitioner-oriented overview of professional standards in all aspects of policing. With a radical, scenario-based approach, featuring both the extraordinary and the seemingly mundane, it aims to capture some of the complexities and interpretations that form the basis of such professional standards in policing today. Awareness of professional ethics has become not only a central requirement of officers seeking promotion to the senior ranks, but also a necessity within the training framework of UK policing, so the editors have brought together contributions...