The policing systems in England, Wales, and Turkey have problems in terms of legitimacy, flexibility, and accountability, and solutions are currently being sought through a range of organizational changes. This book first examines the history and socioeconomic and political contexts of the development of policing systems and state-police relations in England and Wales and Turkey through a critical consideration of various organizational theories and their application to police organization. Second, it compares these policing systems in terms of their levels and forms of legitimacy, so as to identify their bases of legitimate authority and the forms of policing practice. Finally, the book compares the existing police organizational structures in the three countries in terms of the trends for change toward centralization or decentralization. The core theme of the book is the causal connection between differential forms of legitimacy and policing organization and practices. The author proposes that the respective socioeconomic and political contexts have resulted in different policing systems in the three countries, which are in turn within different forms of legitimacy in reality, although appearing to be the same, namely legal- rational. He argues that for England and Wales the real basis of legitimate authority is legal-rational, while for Turkey it is traditional. A 850-item bibliography