Book Review: Handbook of Policing
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1350/ijps.7.1.64.63489 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book review
Handbook of Policing
edited by Tim Newburn
(Willan Publishing, Cullompton; 2003; ISBN 1–84392–019–0; paperback; £28.50. ISBN
1–84392–020–4; hardback; £65; 757 pages, including index)
Tim Newburn, the editor of this adventur-
ous volume, is Professor of Criminology
and Social Policy at the London School of
Economics (LSE). He is also the director of
the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at
LSE. For many years, he has specialised in
research into, and writing about, policing
and security. In this volume he has pulled
together, as his authors, an eclectic selection
of academics and serving police officers.
The combination of practitioners and theo-
reticians combines to give a comprehensive
picture of the current state of the police
service (principally in the United King-
dom) and how things got to be the way
they are.
The book is divided into four major
sections. The first considers policing in a
comparative and historical context. The
section includes chapters by Rob I. Mawby,
Philip Rawlings, Clive Emsley, and by
Newburn himself. Each examines, from a
personal perspective, the development of
policing in the United Kingdom (and occa-
sionally elsewhere), examining and discuss-
ing aspects of legislation, policy-making
and administration, which have produced
the contemporary police environment.
There are many significant and useful
insights presented here for the student of
policing, not the least of which is a conclu-
sion drawn by Newburn and hinted at by
some of his other colleagues that the process
of amalgamation (consolidation) which has
reduced the number of police forces
(departments) in the United Kingdom from
more than 100 at the end of the Second
World War to its cur rent 43, is far from
over. In many respects the tensions engen-
dered by inquiries of one kind or another
into policing or some aspect of the criminal
justice system, almost inevitably result in
what Mawby calls ‘heightened manager ialist
scrutiny of policing services’. Newburn and
his colleagues are, in this section, quite right
in pointing to the strong possibility, even
likelihood, that sociological, political, cul-
tural and technological changes, including
those generated by concerns about security,
will before long produce significant change
in the nature of police delivery of service.
Big may or may not be beautiful, but small
is divisive and potentially inefficient.
The second section of the book con-
siders the context in which contemporary
policing takes place. This is an examination
of the relationship of police activity to other
forms of security provision, including pri-
vate policing. This section includes chapters
by key policing researchers such as Neil
Walker, Robert Reiner, Andrew Sanders
and Richard Young, Adam Crawford, Janet
Foster, and Rob C. Mawby and Alan
Wright. Each of these authors examines
some aspect of contemporary policing
including, in Walker’s chapter on transna-
tional policing, an examination of develop-
ments in Europe and the seeming
‘internationalist’ logic which has led to the
increasing visibility and influence of the
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 7 Number 1
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 7 No. 1, 2005, pp. 64–66.
© Vathek Publishing,
1461–3557
Page 64
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