This book challenges the traditional idea that policing is the first stage in a criminal justice process, the phase in which the police use their powers of criminal investigation to feed cases into the legal system for authoritative resolution in the courts. Choongh argues that the political space allowed to the police on the streets and in the station house enables them to pursue a very different agenda of social discipline--indeed, one targeted at certain sections of the community. This alternative perspective provides many new sociological insights into the use of police powers in modern society.About the Author: Satnam Choongh is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Warwick and a Member of The Legal Research Institute at the Warwick University School of Law.