Covert Police Work

Inside the Secret Garden of Policing in the United Kingdom
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-3-032-41680-3
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan

Buch, Englisch, 138 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm

Reihe: Palgrave's Critical Policing Studies

This book explores how the police use covert techniques to investigate serious and organized crime. It draws on a two-year ESRC-funded ethnographic study of covert policing in an English police service, focusing on a secretive department known as “Specialist Operations”, whose main function is to conduct prolonged and intrusive investigations into serious and organized crime. The book examines how, and why, the police use of covert resources contains an intrinsic level of risk, which creates a series of dilemmas for practitioners. The book, then, provides a rich description of the bureaucratic and statutory frameworks that guide how the police use covert techniques.  In the final chapter, the book develops a theory of control in covert police work that explains how, and when, this type of police work becomes prone to abuse. The book draws on direct observations of police officers at work, including observation of live operations, and makes an important contribution to the public debate about the function of the police in a democratic society. 

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mac Giollabhuí, Shane

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Strafrecht Kriminologie, Strafverfolgung
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

.- 1. Introduction.- 2. A Note on Research Design, Data and Methodology.- 3. Institutions.- 4. Culture.- 5. Towards a theory of police abuse of covert resources.- 6. Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Shane Mac Giollabhuí is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Ulster University, Belfast, in Northern Ireland.