Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham Law School
Abstract
The notion of “zero tolerance” policing has been widely discussed in the media in recent years and has received considerable support from politicians right across the political spectrum both in the USA and the UK. Proponents of this apparently “get-tough” crime control style of policing have used widespread public enthusiasm for such initiatives to justify their implementation. Opponents observe this policing style to be invariably targeted at poor and excluded members of society and part of a growing tendency towards authoritarianism in social policy. This paper proposes that simply dismissing public support for zero tolerance-style policing strategies as being part of a reactionary backlash against social reformist developments in policing - and wider society in general - fails to address some very legitimate public concerns about law and order. Indeed, it is the central proposition that such policing initiatives should be seen in the context of an emerging new conceptualisation of liberalism that promotes the notion of citizen responsibility in equal measure to the traditional demand for rights. The paper examines the socio-political circumstances in which different variants of zero tolerance-style policing has been introduced in the USA and the UK and the very different attempts to sustain that approach in both constituencies
