This study examines the development of policing in Glasgow from 1779 to 1846. It argues that while police reform in the city fits more closely with the revisionist view of police history than the traditionalist, neither, in terms of how they are presented in relation to England, do justice to the distinct and complex manner in which the police institution in Glasgow, or Scotland for that matter, evolved. The absence of obligatory legislative enactments and clear dividing lines between the old and the new police in Scotland, combined with the peculiar nature of the 'police' concept, resulted in a different course of development which neither model accommodates precisely. Police development in Glasgow, the study contends, was characterised by one dominant factor - namely, the middle class seeking to control and manage more effectively their city in the face of rapid urbanisation. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this took the form of establishing a new range of public amenity provisions that were essential to health and safety. However, while this commitment to the wider aspect of policing was never entirely superseded, the control and management of people rather than the environment became of increasing importance to police commissioners as the first half of the nineteenth century progressed. Although no one incident underlay this reorientation, the traumatic events of the post-Napoleonic period proved particularly significant, as the propertied classes sought a more effective form of law enforcement to protect them from political insurrection, industrial unrest and the expanding urban masses. The study will show that police affairs were embroiled in an ongoing struggle between different social and economic groups for control of local affairs. Throughout the period in question, issues of class, status and power were at the forefront of police management, as the local ruling elite sought to withstand the challenge to their political hegemony from, initially, the upper middle class and, latterly, the lower middle/self-employed working class.

Considering police-public consultation forums as a device, or tactic, to ‘civilize’ policing, the possibilities and limitations of ‘civilizing policing’ using this method can be shown. Police-public consultation forums can ‘civilize’ policing – in the sense Loader and Walker (2007) use the term – by contributing to police reform, democratic policing, and police legitimacy. Using the case of Edinburgh, Scotland, the achievements of police-public consultation forums for reform, democratic policing, and legitimacy, are examined and an argument made that consultation forums can make positive contributions in each of these areas. However, the example of consultation forums also reveals significant conceptual and structural limitations to the ideas of reform, democracy, and legitimacy when applied to the police. These limitations are articulated using the social theory of Simmel, Weber, and Lukes: Simmel and Weber reveal the inflexibility and non-negotiable aspects of the police that defies reform and democratic ambitions; Lukes provides an important precautionary perspective on the ‘democraticness’ of democratic devices; and, comparing Lukes with the work of Weber provides a view on legitimacy that reveals advanced complexities to ‘police legitimacy’. In sum, police-public consultation forums contribute to ‘civilizing policing’, but it is also useful to reflect and consider the non-negotiable limits the ‘form’ of the police applies to possible positive change.