ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in police education and training as well as the factors which have contributed to their emergence and centrality to debates around police reform. The chapter is exploratory in character, given that the involvement of HEIs in the training and education of police recruits in Britain is still relatively new, with universities such as Portsmouth, De Montfort, and others taking the lead in the area (Shepard 2003; Wood and Tong 2010). By studying the experiences of countries such as the United States and Australia, who are more advanced in these working relations, the chapter identifies core issues which can assist research and practice within the British context. An important aim of the chapter is to assist in directing future research around university-based policing programmes, contribute to the emerging literature, and sensitize researchers to some of the issues involved.
