ABSTRACT
One of the main aims of this book is to demonstrate the wide range of bodies (other than the public police) who are engaged in policing. However, the public police still remain the most important policing organisation in the multiplicity of agencies involved in policing. As the following chapters illustrate, despite the significant policing functions undertaken by some of the organisations engaged in this process, many still rely on the public police to help them perform some of their roles, cooperate with them in a range of areas and recruit many of their staff from the ranks of retired police officers. Given the extensive literature available on the police, it is not necessary to examine the role, structure, and accountability of the public police here (Waddington 1999; Leishman et al, 2000; Reiner 2000b). There is one area, however, that does warrant consideration here: how the public police have increasingly been subjected to the policy of privatisation.
