Chapter 29 Essay questions

  1. Distinguish between the concepts ‘police’ and ‘policing’. Why is the distinction important? 
  2. Why was policing neglected by criminology until half a century or so ago and why has it become such a prominent research area since then?
  3. What is police discretion and why does it exist? What explains how it operates? How can it be controlled and regulated?
  4. What are the key dimensions of police occupational cultures and what factors explain their development?
  5. In what ways does policing have differential impacts on women and ethnic minority groups? How far does discrimination explain these patterns?
  6. Is it accurate to argue that policing become more accountable but less legitimate over the last twenty-five years? 
  7. Describe and assess the proliferation of innovative police strategies in recent years such as community, problem-oriented, order-maintenance (‘Broken Windows’), and intelligence-led policing. 
  8. What are the causes and consequences of the pluralization of policing since the 1970s?
  9. How has globalization affected policing?
  10. Assess the claim that we are experiencing a fundamental, epochal transformation in the system of policing. 
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