Abstract

Police power is globalizing. Networks of connection are forming among domestic police in various parts of the world; national policing hubs are increasingly linked to their counterparts overseas; regional organizations and fully global police entities are growing in strength and reach. In short, a new transnational architecture of policing is forming (Bowling and Sheptycki 2012; Sheptycki 2000; 2011). As well as being transnational, the new policing is multilateral, incorporating many other ‘police-like’ organizations including secret intelligence, the military, customs, immigration, border protection and private security agencies. Global policing is legitimated by its mission of responding to and preventing transnational organized crime and terrorism, and, increasingly, in the attempt to regulate suspect populations. In practice, this means generating, packaging and distributing intelligence and inaugurating new enforcement strategies and tactics in a range of policing organizations around the world. The globalization of policing is occurring organically as a result of rapid changes in technology and ease of travel, but is also being driven by powerful policy actors from seigneurial states and advocates within supranational agencies such as the United Nations and Interpol.