Trends in Policing ─ Interviews With Police Leaders Across the Globe

The fourth volume in this police interview series provides a novel approach to examining organizational structure, leadership, functions, public projects, training, police culture, and the societal context of policing in different countries. A thorough and in-depth analysis, this book presents an inside view of how key police, corrections and judicial leaders, and administrators view their jobs and the difficulties associated with the changing nature of their work. The text fills a descriptive and theoretical void in the published literature on comparative policing and criminal justice.

From the Introduction by Robert Reiner, London School of Economics, Professor Emeritus:

This book is the fourth in a series of interviews with police leaders around the world that Professor Dilip Das has edited (the previous three jointly with Professor Otwin Marenin, this one with Professor Bruce Baker). Together they now compromise some fifty interviews in total, with senior police executives from all parts of the globe, conducted by a team of experts (some academic, some practitioners), working to a similar agenda of topics for discussion. These cover such issues as an account of the interviewee’s background, education and career, conception of the police mission and role, views on strategy and tactics, democratic policing, the major changes they have experienced, the relationship between theory and practice, and the impact of globalization and the terror threat. Altogether these constitute a resource of immense value to academic analysts of policing philosophies, leadership, contemporary change and likely futures, as well as to policy-makers and practitioners who wish to have a sense of where the leaders in their field have come from and are going.

Anyone familiar with the problems of studying elites, particularly in the always controversial field of law enforcement - problems that are multiplied when conducting comparative international research - will be greatly impressed by this achievement. A quarter of a century ago I embarked on a project aimed at interviewing all serving chief police officers in England and Wales, and did eventually succeed in talking to forty of the total forty-three. This was a formidably challenging quest, as recounted in the book that reported the results, published as Chief Constables by Oxford University Press in 1991. But the difficulties I faced pale into insignificance compared to the logistical and access problems that faced this much more ambitious international enterprise. By any reckoning this book and its predecessors are a major contribution to the study and practice of policing around the world.

The value of the work lies largely in the richness of detailed insight into the perspectives of the diverse array of police leaders. They are drawn from all the continents, and are responsible for a broad variety of policing contexts, from metropolitan to largely rural areas, developed and developing countries, from emerging democracies to ones where democratic institutions have prevailed for centuries. They are diverse in age, ethnicity, education, background, and career trajectories. But despite the appointment of women police chiefs in some jurisdictions in recent years, they are unremittingly masculine. All the interviewees in this fourth volume are men, and this was true of the earlier volumes too. Given the complex diversity of subjects it is hard to suggest generalisations about the results. But I will draw out some of the key points that struck me about the interviews. In line with Kenneth Burke’s celebrated dictum that ‘a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing’, I will also venture to suggest some inevitable limitations of the material, as well as questions that still need addressing.

‘Elites need to be interviewed. The best way of finding out about people is by talking to them. It cannot guarantee the t

Bruce F. Baker is professor of African security at Coventry University in the United Kingdom. His research and publications cover African policing, security and justice reform, and local justice and governance. His book, Security in Post-Conflict Africa: The Role of Non-State Policing (CRC Press, 2009) won the American Society of Criminology’s prize for best book in comparative and international criminology in 2010. He has undertaken research and consultancies in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Liberia, South Sudan, Comoros, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.

Dilip K. Das, PhD, is a professor of criminal justice, a former police chief, and a human rights consultant for the United Nations. He is the founding president of the International Police Executive Symposium (IPES), where he manages the affairs of the organization in cooperation with an appointed group of police practitioners, academia members, and individuals from around the world. Dr. Das is also the founding editor-in-chief of Police Practice and Research: An International Journal. A prolific writer (30 books, numerous articles and scholarly presentations), he is the editor-in-chief of two book series published by CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group: Advances in Police Theory and Practice and Interviews with Global Leaders in Policing, Courts and Prisons.