Introduction

This collection explores how ideologies about masculinity have shaped police culture, practice, policy and institutional organization from the eighteenth century to the present day. ¹ It aims to open up scholarly understanding of the ways in which policing reflected, sustained, embodied and enforced ideas of masculinity in historic and modern contexts, as well as how conceptions of masculinity were, and continue to be, interpreted through representations of the police in various forms of print and popular culture. The contributors explore police systems in different international and institutional contexts, using varied approaches, sources and interpretive frameworks drawn from historical and criminological traditions. As a whole, the collection identifies significant changes to the circumstances in which notions of masculinity were forged as well as enacted over this period, and also highlights how masculine characteristics have been sustained in new police models, ideas and practices that have emerged to meet changing situations and contexts.