Plural policing and CCTV surveillance

Abstract

This chapter aims to make a contribution to recent debates on the ‘governance of security’ (Johnston & Shearing, 2003) by drawing upon empirical research conducted by the author and other writers on ‘plural policing’ and the construction of closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance networks. The chapter attempts to avoid the tendency in some of the ‘governmentality’ literature to ‘airbrush out the state’ (Hughes, 2007, p. 184), whilst at the same time showing that the aims and intentions of dominant state forces and elites are not always realised in practice. The chapter also tries to avoid any simplistic notion of a shift in policing strategies from ‘crime fighting’ to ‘risk management’. The aim instead is to show how the construction of surveillance networks is blurring the boundaries of the ‘public–private’ divide along the ‘sectoral’, ‘geographical’, ‘spatial’, ‘legal’ and ‘functional’ dimensions (Jones & Newburn, 1998), giving rise to a plural policing continuum.

Citation

McCahill, M. (2008), "Plural policing and CCTV surveillance", Deflem, M. and Ulmer, J.T. (Ed.) Surveillance and Governance: Crime Control and Beyond (Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 199-219. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1521-6136(07)00209-6