Book Review: Introducing Policing: Challenges for Police and Australian Communities
| DOI | 10.1350/ijps.7.2.146.65773 |
| Author | Tim Prenzler |
| Date | 01 May 2005 |
| Published date | 01 May 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book review
Introducing Policing: Challenges for Police
and Australian Communities
by Mark Findlay
(Oxford University Press, Melbourne; 2004; 94 pp; ISBN 0–19–551621–4; paperback;
£17.95)
Mark Findlay is a well-known academic
lawyer and criminologist in Australia. He is
a Professor and Deputy Director of one of
the oldest criminology departments in Aus-
tralia, the Institute of Criminology at Syd-
ney University. He is widely published on
socio-legal issues to do with criminal justice
and is a co-author of a well-known text-
book on the Australian criminal justice
system. Findlay represents a very strong
tradition in Australian criminology of
research and publication by legally qualified
academics. But this is the source of both the
strength and weakness of this book. The
approach is generally even-handed, highly
civilised, dialogic and concerned fundament-
ally with civil liberties and the good order
of society. But the book is also non-
quantitative, empirically limited, and there-
fore overly speculative and theoretical.
The function of the book is ambiguous.
It is most likely designed as a textbook in a
police course, with some very basic learn-
ing devices employed such as conceptual
lists and guides for further reading. The
acknowledgements page also emphasises the
role of Findlay’s police students in shaping
his reflections on police work. At the same
time, the book is highly tendentious, with a
very clear thesis that is argued from start to
finish, putting the book more in the genre
of a policy text.
The primary thesis is that community
policing is largely a failure at the street level
in Australia, and that police decision-makers
need to sharpen their focus on implementa-
tion to improve police–citizen cooperation.
In developing the thesis the book ranges
over many issues in the international police
studies literature, with an Australian ori-
entation given to the analysis. The chapters
cover such topics as ‘Policing Histories’,
‘Police Ideologies and Community Polic-
ing’, Police Function: Criminal Investiga-
tion and Specialisation’, ‘Alternative
Policing’, ‘Policing Social Divisions’ and
‘Police and Popular Culture’. However,
despite the currency of such topics, readers
outside Australia are unlikely to find much
that would enhance their knowledge of
policing. The main area of interest is likely
to be in the discussion of police discretion
in relation to the law, and Findlay’s caution
against too closely prescribing police
decision-making in an attempt to stop
abuses.
Unfortunately, the overly abstract nature
of the discussion and lack of detailed case
studies or statistics limits the book’s utility
for many readers. In fact, it is notable that
there is not a single table nor graph in the
whole book. There are some numbers, but
they are very much an endangered species.
Just one example of this concerns the book’s
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 7 Number 2
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 7 No. 2, 2005, pp. 146–147.
© Vathek Publishing,
1461–3557
Page 146
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