Policing in the 21^st century: facing up to the challenges of the privatisation of policing

Braithwaite’s "contestable policing budget" idea is an adaptation of the work of Professor Clifford Shearing. The UK Government commissioned Professor Shearing to prepare a report on the possible administrative and operational structure the Northern Ireland police force should take.

Professor Shearing’s report, known as the Patten Report, developed a model of policing based upon the totally laudable notion that policing must use local knowledge and capacity, must be responsive to local needs, and must be transparent and accountable … state and non-state security services should be accountable and serve all citizens, not a particular class of citizens or the market.

Shearing promotes policing as a public good.

But he does not view it as something which should therefore be delivered by the public sector. Or which the police should have the dominant role in.

Shearing proposed that, instead of a Police Commission, governments should set up "Policing Boards". In Shearing’s model, Policing Boards would have a budget which would be used to pay for security and law enforcement functions, which could be provided by private or public agencies. Shearing’s model relies on cooperation, information sharing, and common priorities between private agencies, the police and the community.

The recommendations of the Patten Report were not adopted by the UK Government. However, Shearing’s approach has been adapted by the Law Commission of South Africa which has recommended a model of people-driven policing and community justice. The Toronto Municipal Council has recently voted to introduce contestable policing budgets. And the idea has been suggested at least once in Australia.

I have not mentioned Shearing’s model or the concept of contestable policing budgets in order to endorse or promote them. I think the UK was right to reject this approach. In countries which have built strong and responsible systems of public policing, it is the thin edge of the wedge towards the residualisation of public policing.

At the same time, however, we can not ignore the positives in Shearing’s proposal. It does have the advantage of setting up a structure focussed on serving communities’ needs and bringing private agencies under the overview and regulation of a statutory authority. But it has ramifications for some of the more traditional activities associated with the law enforcement functions of policing which I believe require us to solve the problems of community safety in a better way.

We cannot ignore these issues. They will not go away.

Today’s police forces – both state and federal – are required to carry out two distinct yet inherently connected functions. They are being required to develop more professional, more sophisticated responses to transnational organised crime – the national security element of being domestic peace keepers. They are also required to carry out street controls, respond to criminal incidents, increase community safety, regulate a range of citizen behaviours and apprehend offenders – the street level response element of being domestic peace keepers.

I am well aware, in fact I am an active proponent of the argument, that police forces (particularly the Australian Federal Police) must focus on fighting transnational crime and the threat it poses to our national security.

But we can not focus on it to the exclusion, or the detriment, of local, community policing.

Inevitably, transnational crime has a local effect. Focussing public policing resources on the big players in transnational crime is necessary but not sufficient – it will always be the case that crime trends reflect local conditions, affect local communities, and require local policing.