ABSTRACT
The principle which underpins policing in Scotland, as in the UK as a whole, is ‘policing by consent’. During the period of police reforms in the 1990s, a document prepared by the three police professional associations described this tradition as policing ‘undertaken with public consent which does not mean acquiescence but with a broad tolerance indicating a satisfaction with [its] helping and enforcement roles’ (JCC 1990: 4). ‘Policing by consent’ is based on a willingness by society to provide police officers with a limited range of powers beyond those accorded normally to citizens in return for an assurance that they will be held accountable for the exercise of those powers. On the police side, there has always been a recognition that the police cannot effectively operate without the co-operation and assistance of the Scottish public and that the price of that is to be able to give a public account of their actions and activities.
