Neighbourhood policing and the re-invention of the constable

This paper examines the notion of neighbourhood policing, from a policy analysis, perspective in three ways. Firstly, it discusses the various policy ‘drivers’ behind neighbourhood policing, including the influence of models of policing from overseas and the role of ‘system failure’ and politics in shaping the agenda for neighbourhood policing. Secondly, the paper examines the implications of neighbourhood policing for the office of constable. The front-line officer is being recast, or ‘re-invented’, as a form of ‘community leader’ and specialist community worker, in place of the traditional omni-functional generalist. Finally, it is argued that neighbourhood policing brings to life a model of policing mapped out some decades earlier—although much neglected—by John Alderson, and his visionary notion of community policing as the creation of the ‘village in the city