ABSTRACT
The enormous influence and popularity of the Dixon character speaks volumes about the peculiarity of the English veneration of their police in what is often described as the 'Golden Age' of policing. The function of policing is essentially to regulate and protect the social order, using legitimate force if necessary. The Operational Policing Review conducted in 1990 for the three police staff associations found that only 18 per cent of a national sample considered that their local police did a 'very good' job. The declining status of the police is related to a number of changes in organisation and policy which have had the unintended effect of undermining legitimacy of the police. The first element in the undermining of police legitimacy was the erosion of the image of an efficient, disciplined bureaucracy. Police effectiveness is a notoriously slippery concept to define or measure.
