Use of Force

Abstract

This issue of Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice , is devoted principally to the use of force, a topic that has dominated academic debate and preoccupied practitioners. For academics, the question is: what distinguishes police officers and the organisations in which they operate from others, particularly those growing legions of private security operatives, un-sworn police auxiliaries, and sundry officials with law enforcement powers? The orthodox answer is that the police enjoy a ‘monopoly of legitimate force’ over their fellow citizens (a view that has its origins in the pioneering work of Bittner, 1970). That orthodoxy has increasingly been criticised in the face of the obvious fact that bouncers, store detectives, security guards of all kinds, and many others also exercise ‘legitimate force’ in ejecting drunken customers from pubs and clubs, apprehending shoplifters, and defending cash in transit, to name only a few. So, if police ever did have...