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This paper aims to explore the recent introduction of directly elected police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales, and to consider to what extent this new innovation should be considered as a positive contribution to the achievement of democratic policing.

The paper draws on a range of key sources of academic literature on police accountability and the sociology of policing, as well as considering the content of government pronouncements and legislation.

The central argument of the paper is that the introduction of PCCs needs to be examined within the context of the hegemony of neo-liberal logic in public services reform. It is argued that some enduring myths of policing, including the myth that the police impartially uphold an impartial law, lend themselves to the depoliticisation of policing which is necessary in order to facilitate neo-liberal colonisation of the service, which is inimical to democratic policing.

The paper builds upon and contests some of the early critiques of the introduction of PCCs which have emerged and proposes a new direction for the development of critique in this area. It will be of interest to policing scholars as well as anyone concerned about the relationship between democracy and policing under current conditions of deep public service cuts and the colonisation of service provision by neo-liberal values.

This paper looks at police brutalities in Italy. In particular, the discussion focusses on the case of the death of Riccardo Magherini, who was stopped by the Corpo dei Carabinieri (CC), a branch of the Italian Army operating as a police force, on the 3rd of March 2014. The paper focusses on the way the police agents involved in the Magherini trial, both witnesses and defendants, made sense of the case. Their answers to the questions put to them by case lawyers or judges during the first trial in February 2016 will be closely examined.

Discussion of the case will rely on material drawn from court files. The Carabinieris internal reports on the incident and the court transcription of the agents questioning will form the basis for an ethnographic analysis of the case. The author will then use the case analysis as the starting point for a broader discussion on police culture. While ethnography generally consists of direct on-the-ground participant observation Geertz 1992, the author’s methodology of using legal transcripts and reports can nevertheless be considered ethnographical. .

Discussion will consider the importance of an ethical element to the internal culture of the Italian police forces which influences their street practice. Italian police have an ethical approach in that they believe their role is to be able separate good from bad and protect society from the bad. Moreover they have operated within a context of impunity which has produced over time a critical threshold according to which specific individuals and groups deemed as dangerous classes are considered outside the realm of normal civilised society and as such can be treated differently in contemporary Italy.

The originality of this paper relates to two distinct elements. The first one concerns the context analysed, as the peculiarities of the Italian police are hardly known to the larger international public. The second aspect relates to the specificity of a case. Magherini was not a marginal person, he was an Italian citizen, but he suffered from a brutality that caused his death. The dynamics of this outcome will be closely analysed.

The unreflective adoption and use of technology by the police, combined with inadequate management, have helped to cause decline in the relations between the police and the public in Britain. Divides the recent history of the police into four periods: “traditional policing” (1945‐1960); “mechanized policing” (1960‐1972); “fire brigade policing” (1972‐1985); and “contemporary policing” (1985‐present). Traces the impact of technology on police practice and the contribution of management for each period. Argues that the development of reactive policing, following the adoption of cars and radios, disrupts the traditionally stable relations between the police and the public, and this is made worse by the administrative centralization subsequently adopted. The result has been widespread resentment of the police, and in some communities organized resistance to their initiatives. In the contemporary period, there are only the beginnings of the development of suitable management practice.

Notes that research interviews form a popular option for practitioner and student research, as they have distinct advantages in eliciting unique information and opinion about the research setting. Points out that it is easy to underestimate the challenges of research interviews ‐ getting reliable responses, organizing and presenting the findings, and guarding against subjective involvement by the researcher. Aims to open up these issues and provide guidance to current reading.

In March, Pavilion and the University of Luton organised a conference ‐ Community Safety Five Years On. This article reviews the contributions of the speakers. It argues for the need to embrace the wider social exclusion agenda and unless community safety becomes a working habit, it risks returning to the limited status of ‘crime prevention’.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of Police and Crime Panels (PCPs) within the new constitutional arrangements for governing police forces in England and Wales.

Desktop research of the web pages of PCPs, combined with documentary analysis of reports of panel meetings and a literature review of relevant academic materials.

During the first year of their operation the role of the PCP in the new constitutional arrangements for governing police forces in England and Wales has been widely criticised. This paper explores reasons that may impinge on the effectiveness of these local bodies to scrutinise how Police and Crime Commissioners discharge their statutory functions. In particular, it draws attention to the limited powers of the panel, the contradictions of the “critical/friend” model of scrutiny, the extent of political alignment between “the scrutinisers” and “the scrutinee”, and the ability of the latter to constrain the scrutiny function of the former.

This paper is the first to explore the scrutiny role of PCPs in the context of the research evidence regarding the development and use of scrutiny within the local government context.

The article presents research results of an ethnographic survey within the German police. The focus is on practices of spatial production and the functions of spaces.

The article draws on data from the DFG-funded research project KORSIT (Social Construction of security-related Spaces) based on an ethnographic survey in the German police force (https://www.dhpol.de/korsit). Participant observations were conducted in police stations in two large German cities (pseudonymised as “Dillenstadt” and “Rosenberg”). It involved 60 guided interviews with police officers at different levels of the hierarchy, as well as further interviews with local and societal actors for contrasting purposes. The data was analysed on the basis of grounded theory (Strauss and Cobin, 1996).

This paper shed light on institutional spatial knowledge, which is the basis of police practices, is preceded by experience-based narratives. In an expanded perspective, the paper argues that urban spaces themselves can be understood as materialisations of social practices that serve as social demarcation that legitimise unequal styles of action in the different precinct within the German police. In terms of a relational conceptualisation of space, it is shown that the categories of ethnicity and gender interrelate within the institutional production of space.

The article links organisational research with sociological spatial research and provides basic explanatory models on the conditions of emergence and the persistence of discriminatory practices within the police.