Reiner, Robert (2010).The Politics of the Police

While many of us now-no-longer-junior scholars of the police were reading other books and watching other television shows about policing prior to 1984, that year was to mark something of a watershed. On television, the first in the series of The Bill was shown, a series that was to become popular in many other countries, not the least being Australia. Another watershed moment came in the form of the appearance of Robert Reiner’s The Politics of the Police. Reiner presented us then with probably the first systematic account of the Peelian model of policing from its origins to the current day. It drew deeply upon the history of the police in England and Wales in particular, and brought into the analysis a keen sociological eye and appreciation of the changing significance of policing in British politics. Reiner’s book entered the world at a particularly dynamic and interesting time. The industrial...