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What Are the Police For?

What Are the Police For?: Episode 2

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Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - What Are the Police For?, Episode 2

Mark explores the relationship between the public and the police.

Mark explores the relationship between the public and the police. How far do the police respond to public concerns? What is the role of the public in policing?

With policing top of the political agenda, and major change on the way, Mark Easton asks what we want from our police.

Mark spends time with police officers doing jobs as diverse as roads policing, neighbourhood policing and monitoring sex offenders to paint a picture of how we are policed in 2012 and examine whether the daily reality matches the political rhetoric. And he speaks to politicians, academics and the public to assess whether what we are getting is what we want.

In this second programme, he explores the relationship between the public and the police. How far do the police respond to public concerns? What is the role of the public in policing? How far have we come from Sir Robert Peel's principle that "the police are the public and the public are the police"? 

Mark also considers how attitudes to the police are affected by media coverage and police drama, and asks what impact that has on how we think about crime, and about the police.

Producer: Giles Edwards.

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Mark Easton asks what the UK public wants from its police force

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