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This article contributes to a growing body of research on the police reforms in Scotland. It examines the particular place given to prevention in public policy and its impact on police practice. We show how public policy reconfigured the place and purpose of prevention for the police, with a focus on safety, wellbeing, and the prevention of harm. The research draws on qualitative data collected in four areas as part of a 4-year evaluation of the police reforms. We refine a public health typology of prevention and operationalize it empirically for the first time to analyse cases of innovative practice. We distinguish a pattern of prevention practice heavily weighted towards secondary prevention, focused predominantly on issues of crime and disorder. In fewer cases, the police applied primary and tertiary prevention, with a focus on vulnerability and harm. Looking in detail at two cases, we illustrate the importance of collaboration for the police, which created opportunities and brought additional resources and expertise to support new prevention approaches which had a significant impact on effectiveness. The police realized collaborative advantage through common aims, trust-building, and leadership. We do not suggest this demonstrates a transformation in police prevention; it illustrates successful police innovation, and identifies the potential to go further. The implications for policy and practice are to recognize the value to the police of investing in new partnerships. They create opportunities for the police to collaborate, innovate, and focus more sharply on the prevention of harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, the Scottish Government took the decision to create a single, national police force, reconfiguring a structure of regional police forces, which had prevailed since the 19th century. Despite a strong narrative around localism in the legislation establishing Police Scotland, the new force that was established in 2013 quickly found itself at the centre of a debate around an emerging 'crisis of localism' as critics expressed concerns over the centralization of decision-making and a lack of sensitivity to local contexts. Drawing on qualitative research carried out in four communities across Scotland in 2016, the analysis presented in this article examines the experience of organizational change from the perspective of officers in local policing teams and from local stakeholders. The analysis is structured around the strategic aims of reform of improved local service delivery, more equal local access to specialist expertise, and enhanced connections with local communities. The article highlights the sense of exclusion from the decision-making surrounding the organizational changes associated with the implementation of reform experienced by local, rank-and-file officers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]