ABSTRACT
With the benefit of hindsight, it is now easier to see how key developments in British policing over the past two decades have been presaged by a model of material and moral investment. There was a basic willingness to spend more on the police. This was a disposition framed by a rather more subtle ‘moral investment’ in policing, contending that the police as a visible arm of the state can and should legitimately be used to manage an expanding spectrum of problems from anti-social behaviour through to counter-terrorism.
