ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the power of the police, police discretion and accountability. It explains the evidence for R. V. Ericson’s conceptual framework of the role played by the law and other rule structures in discretionary decision-making. The book explores neoliberalism in the selected countries, examining how the cities/jurisdictions of interest have been classified in terms of their neoliberal tendencies, as well as looking at data and evidence to examine the extent to which such classifications apply. It focuses on the microcosm of police detention facilities in the cities in the research, examining the terminology used, the physical conditions, routines and rituals in police custody, and staff perceptions of the formal and less formal rules surrounding their discretionary decision-making. The chapter argues that staff across the cities in the research exhibited all of these styles of authority but to varying degrees.
