Conferences

Although concepts such as legitimacy and trust are universal, local contexts and exigencies will affect how they play out from country to country. This paper examines how the legitimacy of the police in England and Wales has been both conceptualized theoretically and experienced by individuals on a day-to-day basis. It attempts to develop an understanding of the legitimacy of the police among the policed which is both true to local context but which also contains elements which may be transferable to other, possibly very different, jurisdictions. After sketching out a working understanding of legitimacy, the discussion moves on to outline the unusual position of the police in English and Welsh culture, emphasizing in particular the strong link that still exists between representations of the police and ideas of national identity, community, and belonging. Data from a large-scale sample survey of Londoners are then used to outline how police legitimacy appears to be ‘built up’ in the light of this link (as well as other important ideas about the police).