ABSTRACT
It is poignant for us as I write this afterword that the obituaries of John Alderson CBE QPM (The Times and Daily Telegraph 11 October 2011, Guardian 12 October 2011) should be before me on my desk in the summer of 2012. Alderson, who is described by Steve Savage (in the introduction to Alderson 1998) as a practising practical police officer with his boots on the ground, was also a philosopher of the ‘good police’ – a police academic. Alderson was the author of several important works (Alderson 1979, 1984, 1998) that explore the problems of policing with trust from the public and integrity from the police. The subtitle of one book was ‘Protecting the public with integrity’ (Alderson 1998). How I wish he could have read the chapters in this volume. How I wish I could have discussed them with him. He once (at the age of seventy-nine I now discover) appeared at a public meeting I was addressing in the inner city and showed knowledge, a remarkable insight and empathy for both contemporary policing difficulties and my career path.
