The power of legitimate naming Part I - Chief constables as social commentators in post-war England

This paper-which appears in two separate parts-traces the advent since 1945 of chief constables as significant commentators on both 'law and order' in particular and 'the state of the nation ' more generally. Drawing upon aut obiographies (and other writings), force annual reports, and interviews wit h serving and retired chiefs, we set out to understand how police elites ha ve come to acquire the power to legitimately 'name', diagnose and classify social problems. We set out-in Part I-to chart the transformation of chief officers from powerful (but essentially) local figures in the 1950s and 196 0s, through the rise of maverick, culturally prominent 'police heroes' in t he 1970s, to the establishment of a more corporate (and generally liberal) police voice since the late 1980s; and document the themes, imagery and pre occupations that have characterized the senior police outlook during what w e distinguish as three distinct periods of mobilization-1945-72, 1972-86 an d 1987-present. In Part II (Loader and Mulcahy 2001), we proceed to develop a sociological interpretation of the emergence and subsequent transformati on of the elite police voice.