ABSTRACT
Even a cursory glance at the many different histories of AngloAmerican policing research shows that one book stands out as being of seminal importance to the development of the sociological analysis of police work: Michael Banton’s 1964 monograph The Policeman in the Community. Leading police researchers still regard it with considerable reverence and respect. For Robert Reiner (1995) it is a ‘path-breaking study … responsible for many ideas and approaches which have been repeatedly returned to’; for Simon Holdaway (1983) it is a ‘foundation stone’ in the development of the sociology of the police’; and for Eugene McLaughlin (2007) it is a ‘classic’, pioneering sociological understanding of the life worlds of the police officer. What is perhaps less often acknowledged is that Michael Banton was, at the time the research was conducted, a social anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh and he largely based The Policeman in the Community on research carried out with officers from Edinburgh City Police and the Scottish Police College. Indeed, despite the book’s many references to British policing and the comparative perspective offered by Banton’s time spent in several US cities, one of the key achievements of the book was (as the Preface makes clear) being able ‘to see Scottish police work in a new light’ (Banton 1964: xi).
