Policing and public health are intimately related in practice but an explicit conceptual framework is missing. The processes of so-called glocalization and of organizations (and issues) becoming increasingly ‘boundary-less’ – especially in the city – explain part of the growing importance of the intersection of policing and public health. But these processes do not provide a conceptual frame, nor does this perspective lead to the much needed practical knowledge on how to craft this emerging domain. This contribution will use the current strategic challenges for the police in the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam as an illustration of the character and importance of the relations between policing and public health. Many issues require close cooperation between the police and public health organizations. Although much has been accomplished there is still a lot left to be desired. Extrapolation of present-day developments suggests that existing modes of cooperation might not be sufficient and that we need to fundamentally rethink the relation between policing and public health. This article concludes with a tentative agenda for explorative research.

Two approaches to the nature and sources of public trust and police legitimacy can be distinguished: the instrumental and the affective. On the first account, people trust in police when they judge it effective in enforcing the law and fighting crime; and they hold police more legitimate when they believe these things to be true. On the second account, trust and legitimacy are bound up with relational concerns about the quality of police behavior, and expressive factors relating to the perceived ability of communities and police to maintain and reproduce social cohesion and order. Studies in Anglophone contexts tend to conclude that this ‘affective’ account provides greater explanatory power. This paper explores these ideas in a new context. Using data from a nationwide survey conducted in Spain we examine: (a) the relative strength of instrumental or affective predictors of trust; and (b) whether trust in police fairness is a more or less important predictor of legitimacy than trust in police effectiveness. Adding to the weight of international evidence concerning the ways people think about and experience policing, evidence for the primacy of the affective account is presented.

In September 2011, the Scottish Justice Secretary announced that in order to address significant reductions in government appropriations, the eight local police forces would be replaced on 1 April 2013 with a single national Police Scotland. The statement heralded the most significant changes in the history of policing in Scotland, sharply contrasting with the current emphasis placed on community policing and localism in police services in other western democratic countries. This article presents an examination into the planning and the development of the Scottish police merger 12 months after the establishment of Police Scotland. Based on a number of semi-structured interviews with policy and decision makers, the research found that the Scottish Government decision to reform policing in Scotland does not appear to have been based on best evidence or best practice and that the implementation process has been mechanical by primarily relying on the introduction of legislation.

Several studies have found that citizens’ trust in the police is influenced by everyday encounters with the police. However, one important factor has been largely omitted from studies about contact and trust: citizens’ overall satisfaction with the functioning of their country’s political system and economy. What we label “system satisfaction” may influence both trust in the police and experiences and interpretations of encounters with the police. Using data from the European Social Survey, we investigate how system satisfaction is related to trust in the police in Norway, and the degree to which it accounts for or moderates the relationship between contact and trust. Our findings suggest that system satisfaction is highly significant for trust in the police. However, it does not seem to account for or moderate the relationship between contact satisfaction and trust. Thus, system satisfaction and direct contact experience appear to affect trust in the police independently.