ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a key explanation for the growth of private policing in North America and Western Europe – the influential ‘mass private property’ thesis. It reviews the evidence about the growth of private policing in North America and Western Europe. The development of more ‘Eurocentric’ theories has to date been inhibited by the relative paucity of empirical data on the rise of private policing in European countries. The chapter consider one of the central explanations for this development – the mass private property thesis. It examines the evidence relating to the growth of this kind of property in the USA and Britain, and assesses how far it helps to explain the rise of private policing in each country. J. Garreau has argued that edge cities are the latest phase in a transformation of American urban life which has been occurring since the 1950s.
