The Crowned Harp provides a detailed analysis of policing in Northern Ireland. Tracing its history from 1922, Ellison and Smyth portray the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as an organisation burdened by its past as a colonial police force. They analyse its perceived close relationship with unionism and why, for many nationalists, the RUC embodied the problem of the legitimacy of Northern Ireland, arguing that decisions made on the organisation, composition and ideology of policing in the early years of the state had consequences which went beyond the everyday practice of policing. The authors...

Community policing is widely regarded as central to the future of policing generally. Yet it is far from a universal panacea or answer to the problem of crime and disorder. Community policing works best where it is least needed - in homogeneous affluent societies. It works worst in heterogeneous deprived social contexts where such policing may be most desirable.

This volume presents a unique examination of Western-led police reform efforts by theoretically linking neoliberal globalization, police reform and development. The authors present seven country case studies based on this theoretical and conceptual approach and assess the prospects for successful police reform in a global context.