Self Check Q&A

Consider the below questions to check your understanding of topics covered in the book. Click on the question to reveal the answer.

1. Prior to the 2002 Police Reform Act, which agencies and groups had advocated the establishment of an independent system to investigate complaints against the police?

Answer: the consultancy firm KPMG, the civil rights group Liberty, and the Lawrence Inquiry Report, a report of the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

2. What does the ‘local resolution’ of a complaint against the police entail?

Answer: Local resolution’ involves the complaint being settled via mediation between the local police service and the complainant, and may involve a local officer investigating the circumstances surrounding the complaint.

3. When was the Code of Ethics of the Police Service of Northern Ireland first established?

Answer: 2003

4. Under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights, what conditions need to be met if individual rights are to be set aside?

Answer: in the broader public interest, but only if the breach is necessary and proportionate

5. What did the Pattern Commission into policing in Northern Ireland suggest was the main purpose of the police?

Answer: It is a central proposition of this report that the fundamental purpose of policing should be … the protection and vindication of the human rights of all.

6. What piece of legislation established the office of Police and Crime Commissioner?

Answer: Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011

7. What form of accountability did the government claim was introduced via the establishment of PCCs?

Answer: democratic accountability

8. Why did Shearing and Stenning suggest that concern about the role of private security had been marginalised in the United States, prior to the 1980s?

Answer: questions about social justice and accountability had been marginalised by a conceptualisation of the private sector as the junior partner to the public police

9. What is the primary requirement of the 2001 Private Security Industry Act?

Answer: The primary requirement introduced by the Act is that all personnel – officers, managers and directors of companies – be licensed.

10. What concerns did Loader suggest are made more salient by the changing environment of international policing?

Answer: questions about social justice, accountability, governance and legitimacy.