Accountability Across the Policing Field: Towards a General Cartography of Accountability for Post-Modern Policing

Abstract

This article systematically surveys the policing field with a view to spotlighting the difficulties in conceiving an accountability framework for policing, transnational and otherwise. It argues that policing is no longer a set of practices embedded in the sovereign nation-state, but rather has become transnationalised and greatly differentiated. Symptomatic of the postmodern condition, the policing field is a fragmented terrain. Its considerable differentiation heteronymy poses acute accountability problems that cannot easily be answered by reference to traditional models of constitutional control.

Keywords:

• High Policing
• Private Policing
• Transnational Policing
• Police Accountability
• Constabulary Ethic