ABSTRACT
This chapter examines core themes in the policing of cities from a critical perspective. First, we provide a brief history of city policing, focusing particularly on London’s Metropolitan Police. Second, we review issues that continue to confront urban public policing, such as the troubled history of inner-city policing in relation to race. Recent activism around the ‘Black Lives Matter’ banner is discussed here in addition to policing the War on Terror. Also considered is the demand for protection from poorer urban communities, who, under the condition of neoliberal urbanism, find welfare provision, community safety and justice increasingly difficult to access. Third, we analyse contemporary urban policing strategies, many of which are argued to actually worsen the problems raised in the previous section. Here we cover community policing, data-driven, risk-based and hot spot policing, and finally, zero-tolerance policing. Fourth, we draw upon a tradition of urban writing that values the disorder of cities and advocates the benefits of self-policing. This liberal tradition is contrasted with neo-conservative cost-cutting measures that, for different reasons, seek to de-police society and pass the burden of security to individuals and communities. Finally, the chapter provides an account of the growing plurality of policing privatisation of police provision.
