The Politics of Global Policing

Globalisation is gradually reshaping the architecture, organisational structure and politics of the police thereby causing a shift towards transnational policing. While crime and policework have traditionally been understood in domestic terms, the recent concern about cross-border crimes and international terrorism, the blurring boundaries between police, border control, military and private security as well as the advances in information and communication technologies are now causing radical changes to the function of modern policing.

The process of transnationalisation of policing raises profound questions about the relationship between the state and the citizen. This seminar aims to set a fresh agenda for interdisciplinary research on the globalisation of policing and address theoretical, empirical and methodological questions such as: How are the domestic police responding to recent developments like the new technologies linking police forces worldwide and global forces impacting their structures and cultures? How effective can the domestic police deal with the threat of transnational crime? What is the role of law and local democratic institutions when police power transcends and transgresses national borders? What is the role of the researcher in making global policing visible and shaping its trajectory into the future?

 

Ben Bowling is Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London. He won the Radzinowicz Memorial Prize in 1999 and was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2005. His books include Policing the Caribbean (OUP 2010), Global Policing (Sage 2012) Stop & Search: Police Power in Global Context (Routledge 2012) and the four-volume Global Policing and Transnational Law Enforcement (Sage 2015). He has been an adviser to the UK Parliament, Foreign Office, Equality and Human Rights Commission, European Commission, Interpol, and the United Nations. Ben is a founding member of StopWatch, a charity that works to inform the public about the use of stop and search powers and to promote fair, effective and accountable policing. He is currently working with Robert Reiner and James Sheptycki on the 5th edition of The Politics of the Police.

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