Review: Issues in Transnational Policing
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200105600311 |
| Author | Allan Castle |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
ISSUES
IN
TRANSNATIONAL
POLICING
Edited
by
J.W.E.
Sheptycki
London:
Routledge,
2000,
xiii,
24
1pp,
US$16.99
paper,
ISBN
0-415-
19261-7
The
transnational
character
of
much
contemporary
criminal
activ-
ity
(particularly organized
criminal
activity)
has
yet
to
be
given
satisfactory
academic
treatment
in
conceptual
terms.
Mainstream
criminology,
especially in
North
America,
has
long
been
taken
with
topics
of
local, regional,
and
occasionally
national
scope.
For
their
part,
students
of
international
relations
-
schooled
for
decades
to
employ
multiple
levels
of
analysis
and
to
appreciate
transnational
phenomena
-
have
done rather
better.
However,
when
international
relations
scholars
approach
the
subject
of
criminality, they
typically
do
so
by
casting
crime
exclusively
as
a
national
security
issue
and
have
occasionally
been
guilty
of
offering
somewhat
overblown
descriptions
of
'global
maflas'
forging
strategic
alliances
that
'threaten'
nation
states.
Certainly
crime
in
some instances
presents
a
degree
of
threat
worthy
of
the
attention
of
the
national
security
apparatus.
But
it
would
be
a
mistake
to focus
on
the sensational
and
miss
the
larger
problematic
posed
by
transnational
criminal
behaviour
(and attempts
to
combat
it)
-namely,
questions
of
governance,
sovereignty,
and
human
rights
raised
by
bilateral
and multilateral
co-operative
law
enforcement
prac-
tices,
or
'high
policing.'
This
is
the
starting
point
for
the
essays
in
Issues
in
Transnational
Policing,
which
is
a
welcome
contribution
to the
very
thin
literature
on
transnational crime per
se.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer
2001
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