Police Research in the United Kingdom: A Critical Review

The British police occupy a unique position as the first to be created under representative government, and one which for a long period was regarded as an exemplar of civility. In recent years, however, this image has been undermined by a number of scandals and controversies. The crisis in confidence in British policing has facilitated a huge explosion of police research in the last decade. Whereas earlier policing research had been primarily concerned with issues derived from a variety of social theories, current work is mainly policy oriented and evaluative. A review and assessment of research on the British police demonstrates that much current work is limited in scope to immediate managerial concerns. There is a need for a revival of the broader theoretical conceptions that have been displaced in recent years.