Trust in the police and policing by consent in turbulent times

Purpose This paper aims to explore the potential impact on policing by consent and trust in the police of diminished political and generalised trust. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on a range of academic literature on trust, the legal foundations of policing by consent, police occupational culture, disproportionality and neighbourhood policing. Findings An analytical framework is developed by recognising that policing by consent can be conceived as comprising two complementary facets, police state consent and police citizen consent and drawing lose mappings between police state consent and political trust and police citizen consent and generalised trust. This supports the argument that the importance of tackling disproportionality in policing practices and an increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing are not only valuable for reasons recognised in existing literature but also because they may bolster policing by consent in circumstances of reduced political trust and contribute to increased generalised trust across society. Originality/value This paper builds upon existing work on trust in the police and policing by consent to give novel insights into the importance of neighbourhood policing and tackling disproportionality. The analytical frame developed also highlights new areas for nuanced research questions in the field of trust and provides grounding from which policy objectives for policing can be developed.