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During the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the onslaught of flooding, the single most important role for government and the public sphere was deemed to be law and order, at times to the exclusion of other public responsibilities. Law and order were articulated almost exclusively as a policing matter with the emphasis on order rather than law. Policing took different public and private forms in the early days of the flooding. This chapter examines the nature of that policing and the unquestioned presence of private police as a key element of the law and order response to Katrina in New Orleans.

Purpose: For contemporary policing, the police–public communication process is one of the most essential elements of law enforcement management. The promotion of police–public relations, police integrity, and police accountability all depend upon effective communication. While ever a challenge for law enforcement agencies, the coming of the COVID-19 pandemic changed substantially the character of both mediated and interpersonal communication between the police and those policed as of 2020.

Methodology/Approach: Building upon the concept of electronic community-oriented policing (E-COP), this chapter proposes an expanded theoretical model of police–public online communication during a time in which in-person contacts are constrained and various forms of mediated communication assume major importance.

Findings: Using a sample of COVID-related police Facebook posts collected between February 1 and May 31, 2020, this chapter illustrates how the expanded E-COP model is helpful in orchestrating an effective police response to a major public health emergency. It also advances the argument that police–public online communication will be not only become widely used during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but will likely become routinized.

Originality/Value: The proposed model also provides practical suggestions for law enforcement agency leaders who endeavor to advance the goals of community-oriented and guardianship-directed policing. Some likely barriers to more effective use of social media are singled out for special attention.

Policing in much of the developing world has always been, in many respects, both dominated by the nonstate and pluralised. Yet, plurality and the nonstate are predominantly conceptualised, by scholars and practitioners alike, as problematic, noninclusive and/or undemocratic. Yet the reality is far more complex than this. In this chapter, we turn the tables on conventional wisdom by looking to the positive features of plural or polycentric forms of security governance by asking how these features might be utilised to provide for more inclusive forms of security governance in the Global South. Drawing on empirical research in South Africa on plural policing arrangements, this chapter considers how Sustainable Development Goal 16 which seeks to ‘promote peaceful and inclusive societies’ might be realised within plural governance systems. This chapter seeks to demonstrate that certain conditions need to be in place for plural or polycentric systems of security governance to coprovide effective and inclusive security for the collective good and, furthermore, that the positive features of the nonstate can be harnessed to give effect to the SDGs.

This chapter is set within global public sector reform processes, as policing is part of public service delivery. It explores the question of who is “vulnerable”, how vulnerability is assessed, and why? It considers the measurement of vulnerability, and how this influences policing practice and the role of the Police in contemporary policing.

The research is qualitative in nature and reliant on interview and documentary source data. It draws on concepts such as resilience, co-production, professionalisation and training as organising themes in which to make sense of how we reimagine the management of Vulnerability and the demands they place at the “core, the heart and the centre” of policing today.

Police management in the UK are attempting to stay true to the Peelian Principle of police efficiency alongside balancing the changing remit of what they have to contend with on a day-to-day basis – this is the paradox. Both Vulnerability and Risk are demonstrated to be increasingly interconnected alongside the developments of public health policing in the UK and elsewhere. Collectively, these concepts help to examine an increasingly complex landscape for the police to manoeuvre within, as they respond to a myriad of competing demands on services.

Vulnerability is the core, the heart and the centre of meaningful human experiences. With increasing pressures on resources, political scrutiny and changing roles and responsibilities, the police as an organisation (both in the UK and internationally) are increasingly responding to competing demands for their service. These demands are represented in this chapter as a paradox of change.

The purpose of this chapter is to question the degree and the nature of legitimacy and force held by private security, and how this can affect the role private actors are playing in the field of policing and in the governance of security.

We draw mainly on existing academic literature on private policing, as well as our own qualitative research conducted in Canada.

If private security personnel have undeniably less legitimacy and force than their public counterpart, two nuances should be brought: (1) there is a tendency toward a shrinking of the gap between both sectors; and (2) these shortcomings do not represent such a problem, considering that, first, private security actors are usually given specific legal powers (e.g., the landlord’s), and, second, they do not rely on legitimacy as much as the police do in order to do their job. That being said, as private security officers and companies are likely to become increasingly involved in traditional police functions (most notably patrolling the public space), their lack of legitimacy and legal powers could significantly impede their actions in the future.

This chapter brings nuances to the supposed lack of force and legitimacy that plague the private security industry. It also sheds light on some of the inner rationales that characterize the dynamics within public and private policing.

Purpose – Emergency situations are known to have significant effects on public attitudes toward the police. However, little is known about these effects over prolonged periods of time, and how they vary across different types of attitudes. Moreover, it is unclear what the root causes of fluctuations in public sentiments of the police in emergency situations are. The present chapter reviews the findings of a research project designed to address these questions.

Methodology/Approach – A three-wave panel survey carried out in Israel in the first three peaks (and corresponding lockdowns) of the COVID-19 pandemic: April, September and December, 2020.

Findings – Following what appears to be a rise in support for the police at the first peak of the pandemic, the authors find a significant drop in numerous types of attitudes in the second peak. Between the second and the third peaks, broad evaluations of the police (not directly related to the pandemic) stabilized, while some pandemic-specific attitudes continued to deteriorate. The drop in diffused support for the police was associated with participants’ assessments of the government’s performance in handling the pandemic.

Originality/Value – Beyond shedding light on fluctuations in public attitudes toward the police over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, these findings add to our more general understanding of what happens to the relationship between the police and the public in emergency situations.

Purpose – This chapter provides an overview to the challenges of policing both natural and man-made disasters. Questions surrounding police preparedness to respond to large-scale disasters as well as the causes of failure are likely one of the single biggest system threats faced by police today.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter starts out with a short discussion about the important impact the 9/11 attacks as well as both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had on policing in the United States. The materials presented also provide a conceptual framework for understanding the meaning of “disasters,” as well as making sense of the effectiveness of the police response. Finally, this chapter provides an overview of the role of police in disasters, and more importantly, their role in “creating order out of chaos” (Punch & Markham, 2000).

Findings – After more than 10 years of substantial attention to problems associated with responses to natural and man-made disasters, significant barriers remain in the level of communication and coordination among first responders. These barriers are best understood as cultural and not technical in nature.

Originality/value of paper – The conceptual role of police in both pre-disaster planning and post-disaster responses has been largely ignored in the literature. This chapter provides a strong framework for conceptualizing these roles. We argue that police, as core members of the first responder system, must continue to break down cultural barriers that diminish their capacities to effectively serve communities in the wake of disasters.

Throughout the world the police have undergone considerable criticism for a lack of transparency and accountability. Many police agencies across the world have been grappling with how to improve transparency and accountability, as well as public acceptance of the police, most especially in minority and immigrant communities, which are the places where aggressive police tactics are often most visible.

This chapter considers policing in Boston, United States, and Bordeaux, France, framed by a three-part medical intervention model. The central thesis here is that in their quest to shed their other social support roles or in undercounting and undervaluing such efforts the police lose an opportunity to reframe the police legitimacy discussion. While issues of police legitimacy have been predominantly framed as fair treatment at the point of being stopped, admonished, arrested, or detained, much of what the police do to actually support communities is not much accounted for in the present legitimacy discourse.

Our preliminary findings suggest that public contact with the police goes well beyond issues of crime. Individuals and communities use the police for preventing harm, responding to a wide array of needs and for mitigating harm and fear, all of which help frame public opinion toward the police and hence shape the level of legitimacy accorded the police.

Analysis of police data from Boston and impressions from a developing effort in Bordeaux consider how the police are organized and what they do in these very different cultures, thereby broadening the conception and measurement of police efforts that support or detract from legitimacy.