Interpreting Policework: Policy and Practice in Forms of Beat Policing

In the 1980s there existed wide and often acrimonious disagreement over the purposes and objectives of police organizations, the ways in which their activities were structured, and their relations with the wider society. Interpreting policework requires a rounded conception of policing, based on both a thorough critique of the main theoretical trends in police sociology, and close familiarity with actual patterns of policing, on the streets, in the stations, and inside the police headquarte...