ABSTRACT
This chapter examines policing and police community relations during Games Time with respect to the core organizational participants: Newham borough policing and the Newham Monitoring Project (NMP). Three key themes emerged from the everyday policing and police community relations in Newham during Games Time: diversity, information and communication. First, on diversity, it was clear that a wide range of views were held by police on gangs, youth and local crime. Secondly, police intelligence both from the Centre and from civilian analysts in Newham proved to be wide of the mark. Yet, the dissemination of Intel regarding gangs targeting Olympic visitors had a major influence on planning Olympic Time police strategies, both in the build-up to the Olympics and during Games Time itself. Thirdly, police intelligence on gangs, which ultimately shaped policing strategies, made relatively limited use of the stocks of knowledge and expertise that were held by specialist police units on the ground.
