Introduction

Ask any Scottish police officer whether or not policing in Scotland is different from that in England and Wales and there is likely to be an almost intuitive, affirmative answer. Ask about the precise nature of these differences and how they have come about and the answer is likely to be less clear and, indeed, may be quite vague. Once the fact that Scotland has its own laws and legal system has been identified, it becomes more difficult to articulate specifically what it is about policing north of Hadrian’s Wall that makes it peculiarly Scottish.