ABSTRACT
Many analysts have claimed in recent years that contemporary policing is entering a fundamentally new era. In terms of policing the arguments focus on two dimensions of change: the so-called pluralisation of policing, the more complex relationship between the police and other policing mechanisms; and shifts in the mandate and legitimacy of the police themselves. During the 1950s (and up to the late 1960s) most police patrol was on foot, and officers on long, lonely night shifts would sometimes relieve their tedium and tiredness by taking a nap in a hospitable building on their beat. The concept of the police officer as "citizen in uniform" was pivotal to the legitimacy of the police at its height in 1954. This involved the idea that a police officer had no special legal powers that ordinary citizens lacked. PACE certainly seems to have had a marked effect on the nature and outcomes of police handling of suspects.
