Policing, Modernity and Postmodernity

Abstract

This paper seeks to assess the relationship between contemporary policing and postmodernity, and to argue that police leaders and policy makers should develop a postmodern sensibility in relation to social change and policing. Official discourse about police reform and policing developments is overwhelmingly couched in terms of modernization; following Gibbins (1998) it is suggested here that a postmodernization agenda should form part of the discourse surrounding the police service and its “reform”. The paper identifies how some police leaders and agencies in the UK have considered the challenges and development of policing in an increasingly fragmented, diverse and eclectic society; whilst such consideration has generally not occurred within a framework of postmodern analysis, it is argued that police leaders, and some initiatives, have paved the way to postmodern policing. The extent to which the modernist project still dominates the policing (and wider criminal justice) agenda is also reviewed.