3 - The Chiefs and the Local State Since the 1964 Police Act

Abstract

This chapter discusses present-day relations between the police and local authorities since the 1964 police act. The chapter situates the present crisis of the local state, with its direct implication for the police institution, within the context of the national and international economy. The peculiarity of local state–police relations and the increasing independence of the chief officer, it is argued, can only be understood if three factors are considered: (1) the rise of the politically interventionist central state; (2) changes in the organization of local government as a whole (the birth of the corporate manager); and (3) the fiscal crisis of capitalism because it affects the various apparatuses of the local state. There is no acknowledgment of the historical development of police autonomy or account of the implications for the relationship of changes in the local state, central state relation since the development of the early police. Nor is there any consciousness of class relations of both police institution and police authority.