ABSTRACT
There was an outpouring of public support and open display of grief by public and officers in September 2012, after the murder of two popular young women police officers in Manchester. This followed a period of violent conflict over ter-ritory between organised crime networks (BBC, 2012a). It reminds us of the high levels of trust and support, the core of legitimacy, among the population achieved by the UK police over generations (Reiner, 2012: 67–114) echoed by the global reputation of the British unarmed ‘Bobby’ on the beat, as the archetypical symbol of democratic policing by consent. Yet trust and support is not shared by all sections of the population. This chapter will highlight key concerns expressed across the political spectrum about accountability and the ability of citizens to hold the police to account through democratic institutions and procedures. We will examine briefly the nature and institutional architecture of police accountability and legitimacy, in the light of the introduction in November 2012 of Police Crime Commissioners in England and Wales. We add to recent reviews of the literature on police accountability in highlighting salient issues for future social democratic policy and practice (Reiner, 2012: 205–238; Reiner, 2013 (forthcoming); Jones et al., 2012; Rowe, 2008).
