Lights Under a Bushel? Visibility Research for Police Scotland

TY - BOOK

T1 - Lights Under a Bushel?

T2 - Visibility Research for Police Scotland

AU - McArdle, Karen

AU - Forrester, Kirsty

AU - Mackie, Alan

PY - 2026/2/27

Y1 - 2026/2/27

N2 - For generations, the archetypal figure of the “Bobby on the beat” has been central to public understandings of police visibility in the UK. This figure often revolves around an idealised notion of an officer embedded in the everyday pattern of local life and has long symbolised a form of policing grounded in presence, familiarity, and relational engagement within communities (Loader, 1997). Contemporary debates around visibility continue to return to this image, drawing on the idea that effective policing is not merely about enforcement and response but also about the proactive cultivation of trust, recognition, and local legitimacy (Skogan, 2019). Visibility is therefore more than just being seen but encompasses a broad range of factors that are crucial to the way in which the police are seen and how the public view the police.

AB - For generations, the archetypal figure of the “Bobby on the beat” has been central to public understandings of police visibility in the UK. This figure often revolves around an idealised notion of an officer embedded in the everyday pattern of local life and has long symbolised a form of policing grounded in presence, familiarity, and relational engagement within communities (Loader, 1997). Contemporary debates around visibility continue to return to this image, drawing on the idea that effective policing is not merely about enforcement and response but also about the proactive cultivation of trust, recognition, and local legitimacy (Skogan, 2019). Visibility is therefore more than just being seen but encompasses a broad range of factors that are crucial to the way in which the police are seen and how the public view the police.

UR - https://sipr.ac.uk/researchreports/

M3 - Commissioned report

BT - Lights Under a Bushel?

PB - Scottish Institute for Policing Research

ER -