The Story of Reassurance Policing and How it Became Neighbourhood Policing

Abstract

What became established as Neighbourhood Policing in the United Kingdom was, to a significant extent, informed by its quasi-experimental predecessor the National Reassurance Policing Programme. In this chapter the key conceptual and practical contributions that the National Reassurance Policing Programme made to the formulation of Neighbourhood Policing are laid out. It is asserted that what the trialling of Reassurance Policing did was to establish a more structured and systematic delivery model, when compared with previous iterations of community policing. In engaging with these themes, the chapter also explores how and why the initial moves to revive this style of community policing engendered resistance in some sectors and how this was overcome.