Within Public Policing: Fictional and Factual Policing

Abstract

In this chapter, public policing is again the main topic, but this time I will put the historical dynamics aside and look more closely into what is actually happening on the ground. That is, the police system is not the object of research, but policing itself. In doing this, I will discuss undertows in policing related to the gradual strengthening of the traditional law and order tasks of the police and the fact that police research (and criminology) increasingly studies parts of public policing that are actually diminishing in terms of manpower, priorities, budgets and political relevance. For this I use the concepts of fictional and factual policing. My argument here is that fictional policing accounts and academic studies neglect factual realities of policing. The factual realities of policing, I argue, fit the function and historical dynamics discussed in Chapter 1, and a distinction is made between five levels of policing. My argument here is that the first level of policing (community policing and other visible policing) — the main object of social sciences — actually is becoming less prominent vis-à-vis policing on other levels (riot squads, infiltration, criminal and political intelligence, forensic investigation, international cooperation and so on).