This seminar examines some of the key challenges raised by policing in a democratic society, and the legal, social, and historical responses to them. Topics of discussion include the problem of police discretion, both in conventional and undercover policing; the use of new technologies by the police and the challenges these pose to traditional ways of regulating the police; the phenomenon of private policing and its historical relationship to the public police; and the attempts by police to create closer ties to the communities for which they are responsible.