Why ‘soft’ policing is hard: on the curious development of reassurance policing, how it became neighbourhood policing and what this signifies about the politics of police reform

Tracing the development of Reassurance Policing and its recent translation into Neighbourhood Policing, this article examines why it is that ‘soft’ policing functions appear so difficult for the police to perform. It is argued that over the past three decades the reform of policing in the UK has tended to oscillate between positions emphasizing coercive ‘hard’ policing functions and alternative conceptions that focus upon the conduct of soft policing, where the emphasis is upon a more persuasive mode of social control. Reassurance Policing is identified as important as, through its incorporation of aspects of the Signal Crimes Perspective, it provides a coherent logic that sets out why both hard and soft policing are important. It is concluded that future policing styles need to be able to respond to the diverse demands of the public and that this will require a combination of hard and soft policing.