Introduction

The past twenty years have seen an expansion of policing degree programmes across the university sector in the United Kingdom. This chapter outlines the policing context that has occurred over the last decade to influence and shape the challenges the police currently face. The policy changes, and directions in policing since the publication of the first edition in 2015 have had a variety of impacts. In the past decade, policing in the United Kingdom and more widely has faced an array of challenges from economic downturn austerity; responses and the impact of covid; and a crisis of public confidence in policing. The rise of evidence-based policing (EBP) has had several benefits and tensions. The categorisation and the potential exclusion of important research approaches risk undermining and excluding rich data and methods that do not reflect the Maryland scale of quality. The CoP definition of EBP signals a less exclusionary definition, although it does depend on the interpretation and application.