1st Edition
Policing the Global South Colonial Legacies, Pluralities, Partnerships, and Reform
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.
Introduction
Chapter 1- Policing the Global South-- colonial legacies, pluralities, partnerships and reform
Danielle Watson, Sara N. Amin, Wendell C. Wallace, Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabi, and Juan Carlos Ruiz-Vasquez
Part 1 – Acknowledging colonial legacies and their impact on policing
Chapter 2- Bringing empire back in: Unaccountable public violence, sovereignty and the rule of difference in Latin America
Markus-Michael Müller
Chapter 3- Post-coloniality as lenses that reveal day-to-day police practices in Brazil and Mexico
Annabelle Dias Félix and María Teresa Martínez Trujillo
Chapter 4- Modalities of policing in contemporary Brazil
Michael Jerome Wolff
Chapter 5- ‘VIP Culture’ and the provision of policing and security in postcolonial Karachi
Zoha Waseem
Chapter 6- From Barefoot Policeman to Policeman as President: An Overview of the Institutional Development of the Colombian Police Force
Juan Carlos Ruiz-Vasquez
Part 2: Navigating plural regulatory systems and policing partnerships
Chapter 7- Serving God, the Community and the State: Policing in Tuvalu
Sara N. Amin, Tanya Trussler, Danielle Watson and Sepola Taata Niulakita
Chapter 8- Police, Private Security, and "Patitos": The Market for Security in Mexico City
Logan Puck
Chapter 9- Plural Policing in Crisis: Inclusive security provision in violent and unequal societies
Julie Berg and Guy Lamb
Chapter 10- Balancing the scale: Police officers’ perspectives on plural policing in the Solomon Islands
Casandra Harry, Danielle Watson and Gordon Nanau
Part 3 – Access to justice, community perceptions and police legitimacy
Chapter 11- Institutional Effectiveness, Access to Justice and the Governance of Women Police Stations in West Bengal
Tumpa Mukherjee
Chapter 12- Unfulfilled Potential: Women Police Stations in Pakistan
Sadaf Ahmad
Chapter 13- Proactive or Predatory: Citizen perceptions of the Zimbabwe state police
Tariro Mutongwizo and Nyasha Mutongwizo
Chapter 14- Challenges of Police Prosecution in the Global South: Perspectives of Ghanaian Police Officers
Moses Agaawena Amagnya
Chapter 15- An Integrative Assessment of Normative Expectations, Treatment Outcome, Procedural Justice, and Public Satisfaction with the Police in the Global South
Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabi
Part 4 – Organisational reform, crime prevention and community partnerships
Chapter 16- From fear to cooperation: The critical role of community policing in building trust in the postcolonial state of Pakistan
Muhammad Abbas, Raymond Shuey, and Vandra Harris
Chapter 17- Feeling black and blue: indigenous police liaison officers in Torres Strait region
Chris Emzin, John Scott, abd Zoe Staines
Chapter 18- ‘Police are the public and the public are the police’: Community policing and countering violent extremism (CVE) in Bangladesh
Niloy Ranjan Biswas
Chapter 19- The Global South and crime prevention through social development: Evidence from Trinidad and Tobago
Wendell C. Wallace
Chapter 20- The Effectiveness of the British Models of Community Policing in Fiji
Anand Chand, Pariniappa Goundar, and Maureen Karan
Chapter 21- From social promise to social fad: The evolution of community policing on
the Caribbean Island of Dominica
Peter K.B. St. Jean
Part 5 – The expanding roles of police organisations
Chapter 22- Policing Human Trafficking and Commercial Sex in Kiribati
Suwastika Naidu, Arvind Patel, and Atishwar Pandaram
Chapter 23- Policing and Technology in the Contemporary Caribbean
Wendell C. Wallace and Leonard Johnny
Chapter 24- Policing Wildlife Crimes: A historical analysis of the development and impact of wildlife ranger units in Sub-Saharan Africa
Greg Warchol
Chapter 25- Criminalization of Moral Hazard during Covid-19 Crisis: The study of Thailand under emergency decree 2020-2021
Sustarum Thammaboosadee
Conclusion
Chapter 26- Continuity and change in policing the Global South
Danielle Watson, Sara N. Amin, Wendell C. Wallace, Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabi, and Juan Carlos Ruiz-Vasquez
Biography
Danielle Watson is Senior Lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She conducts research on police–civilian relations on the margins with interests in hotspot policing, police recruitment and training, as well as many other areas specific to policing in developing-country contexts.
Sara N. Amin is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. Her research focuses on the areas of migration dynamics, identity politics, gender relations, religion, and education. She is also engaged in the scholarship of transformative pedagogy.
Wendell C. Wallace is an English-trained Barrister, Certified Mediator with the Mediation Board of Trinidad and Tobago, and a Criminologist who lectures on the Criminology and Criminal Justice programme at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. His research interests include policing, gangs, violence (domestic and school) and education-related issues.
Oluwagbenga (Michael) Akinlabi is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northumbria University, UK. He has a PhD in criminology and criminal justice from Griffith University in Australia and an MPhil in criminological research from the University of Cambridge, UK. Michael’s research explores police–citizen relations in the Global South.
Juan Carlos Ruiz-Vásquez is Professor in the Faculty of International Political and Urban Studies at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia. His research revolves around citizen security and policing in transitional societies in Latin America. He has served as an instructor on policing the regional training programme funded by the Inter-American Bank of Development.
"This is a much needed and well researched addition to the literature on policing focused on how social and political context in the South create spaces and limitations for innovative police reforms. It contributes greatly to our knowledge on police reform implementation in the Global South."
-Hugo Frühling, Professor of Public Affairs, Institute of Public Affairs Universidad de Chile
"We have been exporting conceptual frameworks and operational models to address security and justice problems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. Good-hearted bilateral and multilateral donors have acted like international travelers unaware of the voltage differences across countries, leaving behind a trail of short-circuited reforms. This volume is an antidote to that benevolent naivete. Contributors of this volume have spoken loudly and compellingly to invite us to enter a new era of reforms with perspectives and evidence from the Global South, by the Global South, for the Global South. No serious comparative police scholars can afford missing their voices."
-Hung-En Sung, Professor of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
"If you desire knowledge about policing in the Global South, ‘Policing the Global South’ is the book for you as it provides a wealth of information on policing issues in non-northern contexts. Chapters in this riveting and captivating book are penned by a diverse array of scholars who are not aligned to northern ideological positions. I recommend this book as there is no other book that so succinctly produces knowledge of policing in the Global South as this book does."
-Stephen Williams, former Commissioner of Police, Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.
"With its wide range of research interests in the areas of police history, of colonial history, of gender, policing and security, Policing the Global South, offers scholars of this genre and of postcolonial and transitional societies an invaluable addition on policing. By decentering the Western’s notion of itself, this book offers a unique collection of case-studies; ranging from policing in postcolonial South Asia and community policing in Sub -Saharan Africa, to gender and security in East Asia and to the more recent drug misuse and crime prevention in Latin America. In so doing, this book diverts attention away from the master narratives, its associated ‘exceptionalism’ and reductive reasoning to provide a more compelling argument on ‘policing’ as an interplay between agency, social order, and politics constituted by and within independent nation states. Focusing explicitly on its own identity and destiny, and reaching towards a new temporality, this collection provides a much needed resource on global policing which will guide and inspire many in the field and beyond."
-Dr Preeti Nijhar is an Independent Scholar, Scholar and author of Community Policing: National and International Models and Approaches (2000) and Law and Imperialism: Criminality and Constitution in Colonial India and Victorian England (Empires in Perspective) (2009).
"This work is an important and necessary reference for scholars interested in developing contextually appropriate responses to policing issues. It advances criminological knowledge on policing in the global South by compiling innovative post-colonial studies by Southern researchers that challenge Northern perspectives, ideologies, and assumptions that have failed to transform policing. The editors consciously included contributions of researchers rooted and situated in different parts of the global South that examine policing issues in their appropriate historical, ideological, and social contexts. As a result, this collection is taking the lead in democratizing and decolonizing policing studies."
-Nathan W. Pino, Professor of Sociology and Honorary Professor of International Studies, Texas State University
"The 21st century is an age of uncertainty and context specific evidence concerning policing in the Global South provides some of the most important theoretical insights. This collection brings together a wealth of data and thoughtful analysis and will be a vital resource for coming to terms with policing and the global system."
-James Sheptycki, Professor of Criminology, York University, Toronto, Canada
"Security represents a public good to which all citizens have - in theory - an inalienable right. However, when it comes to the provision of security 'on the ground', the reality often proves much more complex. In this comprehensive volume of new and emergent research, scholars from across the globe provide fresh opportunities to explore and engage with various aspects of the 'messy' realities of security provision in different contexts. This state-of-the-art book will be a 'must-have' for anyone interested in this field."
-Laura Huey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario and Editor, Police Practice and Research.
