Change in Policing, Changing Police
| DOI | 10.1177/00048658950280S108 |
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| Author | David Dixon |
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Change in Policing, Changing Police
Da
vid
Dixon
Introduction
Clifford Shearing’s contribution to the study of policing has been outstanding.
In a series
of
areas, his work has introduced new ways
of
seeing and
understanding. The collection which he edited on
Organizational Police
Deviance
(1981)
has become a standard point of reference for people trying
to move beyond the confines of standard analyses of official corruption and
misconduct. His work with Philip Stenning on private policing
(1984, 1987)
criticised the orthodox identification of policing with the state in a way which,
in the light of subsequent developments (Johnston
1992;
Shearing
1992),
seems remarkably prescient. With Richard Ericson
(199 1),
he challenged the
accepted normative conceptualization of police culture, and in its place
offered an account drawing on postmodernist theory which sees culture as
carried and transmitted by narratives and stories. With Mike Brogden
(1993),
his study of policing in South Africa rejects the usual attempts simply to
import British and North American policing, and instead suggests that South
Africa offers much for us to learn. In each of these areas of study, Shearing’s
work demonstrates a concern for theory which
so
often has been lacking in
policing studies.
Private
and
public policing
In the paper above, Shearing draws from his work on police culture and
private policing in the South African context to propose ways of transforming
policing which are fresh and of direct relevance to those attempting to change
policing around the world. Not surprisingly, the analysis is controversial.
Popular policing
is
Janus-faced: one side is a communitarian ideal of policing
by and for a responsible civil society; the other is discrimination, vigilantism,
excessive punishments, and an absence of due process. Of course, the real
world is not dichotomized
in
this way. Despite their enthusiasm
for
communal
‘self-policing’, Brogden and Shearing acknowledge the sometimes horrific
expressions of popular policing in black South African communities which
were allowed by the apartheid state to suffer appalling levels of serious crime.
Nevertheless, some critics have been harsh about the optimism in their
account (eg Guelke
1995:419).
Getting away from the state is problematic in at least two respects. First,
South Africa exemplifies the malevolent effects of the state on its subjects. The
civil society
of
black South Africa has an admirable vitality and strength, but
it also bears scars of the disorganization and ideological pollution inflicted by
the apartheid state. Second, there is the paradox that change requires action by
the state, and positive involvement by state institutions in their own
*
Associate Professor, Faculty
of
Law, University
of
New South Wales, Sydney,
2052,
Australia.
62
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