Hard Cop, Soft Cop

The 16 chapters of this book examine policing styles and their effects in the context of and in response to the characteristics and threats of contemporary societies, with attention to developments in the United Kingdom and some other Western countries. The chapter focuses on both the styles and pervasiveness of modern policing in culturally diverse societies faced with significant security threats. The policing styles contrasted are "hard" policing, which is exemplified by the "zero tolerance" policing approach made popular by Mayor Giuliani in New York City in the mid-1990's, and "soft" policing, as illustrated under the paradigms of community policing and restorative justice. These policing styles coexist under an "umbrella" of multiagency social control that encompasses the public police, private police, and social service agencies. The chapters of this book discuss these issues under three major sections. The first section contains six chapters that address "zero tolerance" in New York City, the policing of incivilities in Germany, the policing of socially isolated minority communities in the United Kingdom, the policing of British Asian communities, "hard" policing under current British probation policies, and the "soft" approach of private policing in Great Britain. The second section on the policing of contemporary offenses discusses policing "crackdowns, " a proactive approach to theft offenses, stalking, financial crime, and police involvement in rehabilitative probation programs. The four chapters of the concluding section consider the operation of current policing styles within liberal democracies and how current threats to democratic nations are creating a conflict between citizens' desires for collective security and the preservation of accustomed civil liberties and human rights.