Georgina Sinclair, At the end of the line: Colonial policing and the imperial endgame, 1945-80

The police have many tasks; different contexts bring different tasks to the foreground. During the nineteenth century, when modern, bureaucratic police institutions were established across Europe, the police in Britain were able to avoid much in the way of political surveillance and repression. At the same time, British – or more specifically English – notions of individual freedom and state power led to the creation of a police force that was ostentatiously civilian and rarely carried lethal..