ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to develop a broad theoretical model of the use of force and physical constraints policing. It explores the various ways in which architectures of compliance can be found at work within policing, and discusses the implications of this analysis. The use of constraint practices to achieve compliance is situated within a more general model recognizing other modes of regulation, including legal, economic and social normative approaches. The attraction of Lessig's simple model is that does it isolate and consider 'architecture' as a possible regulatory approach, and places this approach within a wider context of other possible approaches. Tony Bottoms's research on different ways of obtaining compliance within criminal justice is potentially of considerable interest to the study of policing. The chapter describes the classic studies of the role of force in policing and shows how this study can be reinterpreted using the above theoretical approach to suggest a reinterpretation of its understanding of 'force'.