ABSTRACT
Focusing mainly on counterterrorist investigations, this chapter examines the lack of operational police officers’ discretion in applying the law in high policing (defined below) compared with officers carrying out low policing duties. Founded on data gathered from counterterrorist investigations conducted by the UK forces’ Special Branch Counterterrorism Units (CTU) departments in the UK between 2006 and 2007, this chapter looks into an area of policing that has so far been out of the reach and eluded the rigor of academic study (Gill 1994, Chapter 1; Innes and Thiel 2008, pp. 554-555). The chapter places in context what police activities amount to high policing and explains the research method of covert participant observation from which the data were collected.
