Policing in an Age of Austerity uniquely examines the effects on one key public service: the state police of England and Wales. Focusing on the major cut-backs in its resources, both in material and in labour, it details the extent and effects of that drastic reduction in provision together with related matters in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This book also investigates the knock-on effect on other public agencies of diminished police contribution to public well-being.

Policing in an Age of Austerity will be of interest to academics and professionals working in the fields of criminal justice, development studies, and transitional and conflicted societies, as well as those with an interest in the current financial crisis.

1. Introduction - turning over the pebble 2. The state of the police of the state 3. Smoke and mirrors - the cuts in policing and the technological fix 4. Commodifying state policing - the export of the 'UK Police plc' brand 5. Policing the Other through law 6. Policing the Other: continuity of practice from St Giles to Dale Farm, Epilogue: treading the thin blue line.

Mike Brogden is Honorary Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Lancaster. He has served as an advisor to several governments on policing matters, and inter alia, served as EU Security Advisor for the first democratic election of 1994 in South Africa.

Graham Ellison is Senior Lectuerer in Criminology, School of Law, Queen's University, Belfast. He has been a Senior International Expert to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Turkey in respect of the civilian oversight of the police there.