NCJ Number
188022
Journal
Theoretical Criminology Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2001 Pages: 9-35
Date Published
February 2001
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This article reformulates and defends a positive, rather than pejorative, connection between policing and the state.
Abstract
The gradual "de-coupling" of police and state is an increasingly well-documented phenomenon. State power in the area of law enforcement is being relinquished in various ways, i.e., "outwards" to burgeoning commercial markets in policing and security; "downwards" to private organizations and municipal authorities, as well as to "responsibilized" consumers and citizens; and "upwards" to new sites of international police cooperation and transnational policing forms (Walker, 1999a). The article begins by reconstructing four means by which the state-policing nexus might plausibly be established: the monopoly of legitimate coercion, the delivery of civic governance, the guarantee of collective provision, and the symbolism of state and nation. These four vehicles for reconstructing the state-policing nexus are assessed both in relation to their sociological viability under conditions of fragmentation and pluralization and their normative adequacy to the task of producing democratic, equitable, and effective policing. The article then outlines the authors' preferred mode of reconfiguring the linkage between policing and the state. This mode recognizes the social nature of what policing offers to guarantee, namely, security; on this basis, it combines elements of all four of the candidates for reconstructing the police-state nexus to form a communal conception of policing as a public good. 9 notes and 98 references