Hard Cop, Soft Cop: Dilemmas and debates in contemporary policing

This is a book about policing styles in the broadest sense, looking at zero tolerance policing at one extreme and ‘softer’ approaches to policing at the other. It is particularly concerned to explore the dilemmas and moral ambiguities inherent in the tensions between different policing approaches. Rather than seeking to juxtapose ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ policing styles the guiding thread of the book is the notion that policing is both pervasive and insidious. Different policing styles, whether conducted by the public police service, private security or social work agencies, are all part of a multi-agency corporate crime control industry which provides the essential context for an understanding of these different approaches.