Doing Less With More. The New Politics of Policing

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Doinglesswithmore The‘new’politicsofpolicing

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nticipating last year’s comprehensive spending review, a number of senior police officers started to claim that in future the police would have ‘to do more with less’. But this fundamentally misread the ‘new’ politics of policing that is emerging. It is clear, following the publication of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, that the Coalition government has a radical agenda for police reform. Driven by a combination of economic and ideological imperatives, policing is expected, in terms of public funding, to ‘do more with less’ while, in other respects, doing ‘less with more’.

Ineffect,thepolicewilldo less andwillbeexpected tofindwaystoengage more individuals,communities andorganisationsin policingactivity The reductions in public spending on the police, which the government expects to be around 20 per cent, means there will be less police officers and so when they do act, it will be important that their interventions have more impact. However, together with these economic factors there is a political case for reform also. Influenced publicpolicyresearch–June–August2011

by the government’s ‘big society’ thinking, there is a clear sense in which communities are expected to become more involved in social control work. In effect, the police will do less and will be expected to find ways to engage more individuals, communities and organisations in policing activity. In this sense, the pressures on the police resonate with those facing a number of public services. The government’s public service reform agenda is predicated on pushing responsibility ‘down’ from national government to local service providers, and ‘out’ from the centre to service users, who will be given more discretion to determine whether local provision is meeting their situated needs. This article examines the emerging reform agenda around policing and how we should understand its causes and potential consequences. First, it places the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill in the context of the longer-term ‘deep politics’ of police reform. Second, it examines the bill and its aim of inducing a more ‘democratic’ policing. Next, it focuses on some of the difficulties involved in police–community engagement and in rendering the police more responsive to community concerns. This is informed by empirical data derived from two major research programmes in South Wales and South London. The discussion concludes by thinking about how policing will look over the next decade and the tensions it will confront. 73

© 2011 The Author. Public Policy Research © 2011 IPPR

MartinInnes assessestheCoalitiongovernment’spolice reformagendaandseesan‘evolutionwithinarevolution’, withapparentlyradicalreformsinfactrepresentingthe continuationofadeeper,longer-termprocessof reshapinganddemocratisingthepoliceforceandits socialrole.


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