ABSTRACT
Modern police forces are large and complex organisations, expected to perform a diversity of functions and tasks using an increasingly complex set of methods and techniques and under pressure to account for their activities in ways which satisfy a variety of constituencies. There is a tendency within the police service to see technology as a tool that helps them do the job, rather than something that can fundamentally alter the nature and context of that job, and the scope and nature of government research and development for the police have both reflected and helped to reinforce that view. Diametrically opposed to this point of view is that taken by many modern commentators on policing who present policing technologies both as all-pervasive and entirely baleful, if not in intention then in their effects. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
