Policing and Crime in Contemporary London

Abstract

In support of the Policing European Metropolises Project and as a starting point for investigating such a complex and challenging subject as policing the global city of London, the article provides an exposition of the current agenda for policing and crime as advanced by the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which assumed responsibility for police governance in January 2012. To justify this focus, the article draws upon distinctions made in urban regime theory about governing arrangements that seek to maintain, develop, reform or transform public policy agendas in the governance of cities. It uses these to question prospects for the MOPAC Policing and Crime Plan for 2013-16 and to provoke questions for further research into the lessons that can be drawn from this case for comparisons of policing in other European metropolises. In this regard, it is argued that the concept of the ‘metropolis’ implies an understanding of contemporary urban phenomena, such as crime and policing, as social products that have an integral relationship to a ‘world urban system’ of political, economic and cultural relations.