The Rebirth of Private Policing (Electronic book text)

Until recently, private policing has been ignored by those pre-occupied with the activities of public police officers. There has been very little discussion of the role of policing, which is carried out by a variety of agents, in relation to the role of the police, a specific group of people. Les Johnston argues that policing, far from being the exclusive preserve of this group, is an activity undertaken by a mixture of public, private, and quasi-public agents.; He provides a new view opposed to models of police history which see the emergence of the 'new police' (since 1829) as signalling a complete break with earlier, private, modes of provision. In fact, he claims, there is no clean break between the 'old' and the 'new' policing. In the first part of the book, Johnston reviews the history of private policing and examines the various ideologies of privatization. He goes on to look at current developments in private policing, including such areas of topical concern as the activities of the private security sector, and the increasing effects of privatization on police forces.; Lastly, Johnston's argument forces us to re-assess the conventional distinction between 'public' and 'private' authority so often taken for granted in social and political theory.