Accountability of Policing

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. This book contributes to scholarly debates by analysing emergent and existent accountability regimes of police and policing. It explores the key concepts of policing and accountability in broad terms. It also explores the architecture of global policing and provides a sense of the occupational subculture which has built it up around it. It shows how representations of global crime and disorder problems have been used to justify global policing in political, legal and social terms. Bowling and Sheptycki proceed to reflect upon how global policing is politically and legally accountable, and try to advance thinking by considering how it ought to be. Principles of accountability rooted in liberal democratic systems of government have been tested by new demands emerging from a fast-changing policing environment, new challenges of crime, security, and shifting patterns of governance in society more broadly.