policing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Patrol work carried out across an area by the police.

   Foot policing returned to the main street after complaints about late-night noise.

   The town relies on regular policing to keep its busy market district secure.

   Similarpatrolling

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The maintenance of public order within a community.

   Effective policing keeps disorder in check during large public events.

   Debates about policing often center on how order should be balanced with civil liberties.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The monitoring or regulation of some conduct, content, or activity.

   The policing of online speech raises difficult questions about free expression.

   Industry leaders argued that voluntary policing of advertising worked better than new laws.

   Similarregulation, monitoring, control, supervision

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle of police.

   The council is policing illegal dumping along the riverbank.

   Stewards were policing the entrances to stop ticketless fans from getting in.

   Note

   Police drops its final e here, and the result works as both participle and gerund. As a verb it usually takes a direct object: policing the entrances, or, figuratively, policing a group's standards. The slang sense of cleaning up an area can stand without one. When Leo Hickman wrote of "the use of algorithms in policing" in The Guardian Weekly (2013), the gerund shades into the noun for keeping public order.

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