Ironies, Paradoxes and the Seven Plagues of Policing and Security

Abstract

As the subtitle indicates, I’m interested in ‘ironies, myths and paradoxes’ in the unfolding stories of policing and security. For this reason, I will now discuss the seven plagues. Unlike the plagues in the biblical book of Revelations, the plagues that I am concerned with in this chapter affect the regulation, supervision and law enforcement activities of the many dozens of inspectorates, supervisors, special tracing services, regular police services and various new supervisors or authorities such as the Dutch Competition Authority (NMA), Telecom Authority (OPTA) and the Authority for Financial Markets (AFM) (authorities to enforce fair competition in the Dutch commercial markets, compliance with regulation in the post and telecommunications sector, and honesty and transparency in the financial markets).