This is one of the most ambitious books on policing ever written. It aims to provide a comprehensive but highly readable overview of policing in the UK, reflecting the transformations that have taken place in recent years and the increasing professionalisation of one of the country's most important services. It will be an essential text for anybody involved in the study of policing as a subject in its own right or as part of a broader criminal justice or criminology course, and a key source of reference for the police themselves -- it is by far the most comprehensive and authoritative book to have been written on the subject, combining the expertise of leading academic experts on policing and policing practitioners themselves. It will becom...