Summary
This study sought to understand how foot patrol (or 'beat') police officers acted and viewed their actions in a unique urban setting. Using interviews and observation, the thesis examines the outcome of the Halifax Regional Police Service's newest management initiative, the Enhanced Community Response Model of policing. Exhibiting many characteristics typical of policing in late modernity, the new model provided a rich environment for the advancement of the empirical base in policing scholarship. By comparing results from two adjacent policing districts in Halifax's urban core, the study found that, within the bureaucratic and civic constraints of policing in Halifax, fundamentally different approaches to police service could exist on an almost street-by-street basis. In turn, the thesis argues that policing scholarship must pay attention to the idiosyncratic effects of local conditions if we are to understand the potential for variable outcomes of discretionary policing models. The paper further develops a conceptual model for understanding the process of front-line policing strategy formulation under a 'new' policing model such as the one found in Halifax.