ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how far the transformations pose new challenges to police legitimacy that are entirely different from those that gave rise to Police and People in London, and how these new challenges can be met. It reviews the foundations of police legitimacy and the strategies that were used to achieve it in the years up to the Second World War. The chapter discusses the challenges to police legitimacy in the postwar period that created the demand for the Policy Study Institute study. It describes transformations in policing since 1983, and analyses ways in which these have the potential to weaken police legitimacy in the new political context of competition between parties on issues of law and order. The chapter argues that trust, a professional culture, and good practice are the key to the establishment of police legitimacy in the face of the recent and continuing transformations in policing.
