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Policing - new material (53)

01 September 2000

Police complaints and discipline: England and Wales, April 1999 to March 2000, Judith Cotton and David Povey. Statistical Bulletin 14/00, 21.9.00, pp19. Despite a 3% increase in the number of complaints, to 21,000, since 1998/1999 the number of complaints that "required investigation" was 13% less than the previous year. The number of substantiated complaints dropped by 4% to 714 (9% of those investigated). Disciplinary charges were proved against 353 officers and misconduct "sanctions" imposed on another 476. As a result 115 police officers were dismissed or required to resign.

Press Digest 4. National Campaign Against CS Spray (September 2000), £3.50. This is the latest digest compiled by the campaign and covers the period from August 1999-2000. The campaign expresses concern that CS spray has increasingly "become a weapon of first use and that the Home Office has misled the public about the safety of CS." Available from Kevin Blowe, National Campaign Against CS Spray, c/o NMP, Suite 3, 63 Broadway, London E15 4BQ.

The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power, Mark Neocleous. Pluto Press, 2000, £14.99 (paperback), 320pp, ISBN 0 7453 1484 8. Neocleous attempts to provide "a fuller understanding of the ways in which the state polices and secures civil society, and how order is fabricated through law and administration". However, with all the emphasis on the theory, and precious little on the practice, this text is strictly for the academics.