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Why study policing comparatively?

Why study policing comparatively? Importantly, many policing functions are surprisingly similar across numerous polities. This similarity in turn highlights variations between them in the effectiveness, efficiency, legality, honesty, fairness, and trustworthiness with which they operate. Scholars will want to understand the magnitude of these differences, and how they are linked to larger contexts in which police operate. This might involve studies of otherwise similar pairs of polities which vary on some theoretically important causal factor, somewhat larger groupings of places that in tandem represent two (or more) analytic dimensions, and ‘large N’ correlational studies which can support statistical controls. The polities may be nations, but some studies have usefully decomposed nations into local regions or collections of citieswithin them, leveraging on their internal variation and expanding the range of explanatory factors that can be explored. Among the most fundamental distinctions amongmany states is their colonial legacy. Around the world, forms of policing are an inherited institutional structure (e.g. the ‘Anglo American model’), or one imposed more recently from abroad (Japan; Germany). In troubled places, the preferences of donor nations may find surface representation in police and other governing institutions (Afghanistan; Iraq). What donors are after will also vary, ranging from promoting effective civil societies to cynically securing stability in the region. Important structural features of policing such as the extent of centralisation versus local autonomy, how policing is paid for, whether varying regional or common national laws are being enforced (the United States), and whether policing is unitary or organised around the dual hierarchies of a civil police and a military police (as in Brazil), often reflects these historical and globalisation factors. The strength of the state is another important factor. One indicator of a weak state is the appearance of non-state actors such as private militias (Brazil) and community self-defense groups (Mexico) in the public safety arena. In nations facing waves of serious violence, a variable is the extent to which the military looms, ready to intervene and promising to deploy their iron fist to restore stability and security. In better-off places growing third-party policing, including both private police forces and public-private contractual security arrangements, often are not seen as threatening the autonomy of the state. An issue of enduring importance is the extent of corruption characterising both police and political institutions. Whether measured by surveys of the experiences of citizens, surveys of line police officers, or via expert ratings by international and business organisations, corruption undermines public confidence in the police. It is also intimately intertwined with perceptions of police effectiveness, their legitimacy, and popular willingness to cooperate with them. Does it take a strong state to control police corruption, or do some strong states foster corruption to cement relations among elites and ensure compliant local governance (Hungary)? Is corruption in the political system a prerequisite for police corruption? In the United States, corruption is a particularly under-researched topic. Looking globally and comparatively provides opportunities for examining structural changes which may be individually rare and usually occur elsewhere. These include centralising (Scotland) or decentralising policing (in the case of the Dutch, decentralising and then recentralizing them again). Promising to inject some public accountability into their previously well-insulated world, the UK introduced popularly elected commissioners to oversee local police budgets, leadership,