ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to put the use of police powers in context, setting out the social, political and economic conditions in each of the common-law countries in which the cities that serve as case studies. The focus is on the way that neoliberalism has been made manifest in Australia, England, Ireland and the US in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The chapter provides a platform for understanding how police powers and the associated discretionary decision-making. Most of the scholarship on neoliberalism and police work tends to treat neoliberalism as a framework for better understanding the organisation of police work. The value placed on individual autonomy and freedom from the state may help to explain the personal and individualised nature of police-citizen relations in the US, characterised also by the use of discretion. The transforms police custody into a potential site of neoliberal governance.
