Cops for Hire: Methodological Issues in Researching Private Policing (From Qualitative Research in Criminology, P 141-154, 1999, Fiona Brookman, Lesley Noaks, et al., eds. -- See NCJ-180934)

• NCJ Number: 180939
• Author(s): Lesley Noaks
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: Ashgate
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This article examines the emergence of private policing in residential communities in the United Kingdom.

Abstract

A patchwork of neighborhood security patrols operated by a diverse range of commercial companies is appearing throughout the UK, effecting a radical departure from the traditionally public status of policing and law enforcement. The article’s major focus is research concerned with the culture of private policing, specifically the ethical issues which emerge from a heavy reliance on informants as a source of data. The broad objectives of the research were to consider the relationship between private and public policing in a specific physical location and the consequences of that relationship for individual residents’ constructions of the crime problem and law enforcement in their community. The research project used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, including a neighborhood survey, interviews with police personnel and an ethnographic study of a private security firm. References