Policing Systems

Policing systems have traditionally been identified with the enforcement of national law and social order at the urban scale—the street, the “beat,” the precinct—but increasingly transnational networks [Page 1333]and international agendas are becoming the domain of the police. Modern forms of policing consist of a range of activities that may include social control, disorder repression, information gathering, conflict resolution, crime investigation, protection services, and norm enforcement. Although the term police designates a formally authorized public institution, the practices of “policing” are taken up by an ever-widening array of governance entities and private agencies operating at a variety of scales.

Law enforcement organizations and private-sector security firms have become pivotal global actors transmitting norms, technologies, and practices between continents. At this scale, globalizing policing systems do more than enable cross-border crime investigations. They influence levels of violence, shape ethnic, racial, and gender relations, and they ensure or undermine the rule of law in every world region.

Contradictory dynamics drive the globalization of policing systems today. On the one hand, the booming transnational private-sector security industry has led police away from the rule of law and toward militarization and profit maximization. On the other hand, the public responsibilities of the police have increased, as they have faced global-scale challenges and risks, and as the norms of police professionalism have become firmly grounded in international human rights standards and humanitarian frameworks of legitimacy.

To understand how contemporary policing systems are being reconstituted at the global intersection of private-sector transnationalism and humanitarian internationalism, this entry traces some of the historical differences between models of policing in countries that have been most influential. Next, it explores how global transmissions and conflicts have changed these traditional models of policing, leading to the emergence of new sets of practices, technologies, and norms that circulate worldwide. Policymakers, activists, and police organizations are working to change policing systems. The best among them aim to transform globalization into a process that can strengthen rather than undermine the equal application of justice.