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Forcing the Issue: New Labour, New Localism and the Democratic Renewal of Police Accountablitily

NCJ Number
212493
Journal
Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 44 Issue: 5 Dated: December 2005 Pages: 473-489
Author(s)
Eugene McLaughlin
Date Published
December 2005
Length
17 pages
Annotation
By concentrating on the proposals contained in the government Green Paper, Policing: Building Safer Communities Together, this paper analyzed the development of the latest Home Office plans to revitalize the zombie framework of police accountability.
Abstract
The Home Office has been forced to acknowledge the need to activate innovative, transparent, understandable, and relevant ways of ensuring that those tasked with policing are held primarily to democratic account. The shift to a neighborhood reassurance policing philosophy foregrounds the possibility of more direct forms of accountability, or trust-based policing and new service delivery models. This paper concentrates its analysis on the proposals contained in the government Green Paper, Policing: Building Safer Communities Together to re-invigorate the structure of police governance in the United Kingdom. The paper begins by providing a brief overview of New Labor’s initial attempts to modernize British policing. It then explores why and how the broader political discourse of new localism came to inflect the unfolding debate about the need to revitalize police accountability. Lastly, a critical evaluation is offered of the latest attempt to reorganize the democratic structure of police governance. References