7. Police Liaison Approaches to Managing Political Protest: A Critical Analysis of a Prominent UK Example

The case study presented in this chapter focuses on the work of a 15-person Police Liaison Team in relation to a large-scale political protest in the major English city of Sheffield in March 2011. The chapter utilises participant observation and interview data, and initially employs the author’s Flashpoints Model of Public Disorder to emphasise how a combination of contextual factors and dynamic processes—underpinned by a strong Community Policing orientation—were conducive to a highly permissive style of policing, which strove to facilitate the protest’s main objectives. The same body of data is also used to address the cynical suggestion that this particular style of policing actually constitutes a ‘sham’, insofar as it is chiefly designed to secure the protesters’ compliance with the police’s own agenda.