Policing and the Reproduction of Local Social Order : a case study of Greater Manchester

In light of increasing concerns in relation to police accountability, this article reviews the history of public order policing for one large provincial force (Greater Manchester Police). Explaining our misgivings about those narratives that discern a trend towards 'negotiation' and 'facilitation' between protestors and the police, we outline a critical framework for the analysis of police practice. This account is centred upon an understanding of the development of policing as the cornerstone of the fabrication of bourgeois social order, but stresses that this is mediated through its formal subservience to the rule of law, conflicting priorities and the need to establish 'patterns of accommodation' with the populations that are to be policed. All of this makes for the reproduction of 'local social orders', influenced by particular urban political contexts, as well as wider cultural currents. This article suggests that this is clearly evident in the facts surrounding the four major riots, and numerous other public order policing engagements, that mark the history of this particular provincial force. Keywords: Public Order Policing, Social Order, Police Community Relations, Riot