ABSTRACT
Policing the Global South provides scholarship which further transnationalises and democratises ideas about policing practices and philosophies, highlighting renovations in approaches to policing studies, and injecting innovative perspectives into the study of policing from scholars positioned on the ‘periphery’.
Criminological knowledge depolarisation underscores a conscious effort by scholars from the Global South to increase intellectual knowledge focused on developing context-specific responses to issues not aligned to Northern ideological positions and specific to the non-Northern context. Such shifts draw attention to the expanse of spaces beyond Northern centres rife with challenges unlike any specific to those experienced or conceptualised by scholars from the Global North with an applied Northern criminological lens. Applying a postcolonial lens to empirical knowledge from country-specific cases in former colonies in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Latin America, this book examines how policing issues not aligned to Northern ideological positions and specific to non-Northern contexts are addressed. The primary purpose is to share innovations in the field of policing – service provision, threats to security, crime responses, justice and international trends – developed in postcolonial developing-country contexts. Given the aim of the book and the contributors’ own research on issues of policing across the globe, it discusses themes including but not limited to the colonial legacies and their impact on policing; how plural regulatory systems and partnerships are navigated by the police; the linkages between access to justice, community perceptions, and police legitimacy; innovations and challenges in organisational reform, crime prevention, and community partnerships; and the expanding roles of police organisations in the Global South. While each chapter presents a policing issue in a country within a specific part of the Global South, the book highlights how important it is to frame responses based on contextual realities informed by an awareness of the past and present, with a goal of informing the future.
Delivering a much-needed introduction to those specialising in policing in developing countries, this book is invaluable reading for academics and students of criminology, criminal justice, governance, policy, and IR, as well as professionals in policing organizations across the globe.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |14 pages
Introduction
chapter 1|12 pages
Policing the Global South
part 1|78 pages
Acknowledging colonial legacies and their impact on policing
chapter 2|16 pages
Bringing empire back in
chapter 6|16 pages
From barefoot policeman to policeman as president
part 2|58 pages
Navigating plural regulatory systems and policing partnerships
chapter 9|16 pages
Plural policing in crisis
chapter 10|14 pages
Balancing the scale
part 3|74 pages
Access to justice, community perceptions, and police legitimacy
chapter 14|17 pages
Challenges of police prosecution in the Global South
part 4|96 pages
Organisational reform, crime prevention, and community partnerships
chapter 16|15 pages
From fear to cooperation
chapter 17|13 pages
Feeling black and blue
chapter 18|16 pages
“The police are the public and the public are the police”
chapter 19|18 pages
The Global South and crime prevention through social development
chapter 21|15 pages
From social promise to social fad
part 5|58 pages
The expanding roles of police organisations
chapter 24|14 pages
Policing wildlife crimes
chapter 25|12 pages
Criminalisation of moral hazard during the COVID-19 crisis
part |8 pages
Conclusion