ABSTRACT
If ‘policing’ is a public good (Loader and Walker, 2001) and policing—as a public good—has public value (Moore, 1995), can we determine this value by reference to the levels of trust and confidence expressed by ‘the community’ in the police? This is the key question that this chapter seeks to explore. From earliest times, policing has been critical to communitarianism in balancing individual rights with social responsibilities and by shaping groups of individuals by aligning the values and culture of communities. In what was called the ‘hue and cry’, medieval communities had a joint responsibility to catch those who committed crimes against pain of sanction if they failed to do so. Modern-day community responsibilities are not so draconian but still favour neighbourhood-based policing and the balancing of individual and community responsibilities, which rely on trust and confidence in legitimizing policing. At the time of writing, the Policing and Social Responsibility Bill is making its way through Parliament, incorporating a number of changes that the government describes as ‘a radical shift in power and control away from government back to people and communities’ (Home Office, 2010, p. 2).
