Rules in policing: Five perspectives

Abstract

This article examines five perspectives on how rules relate to police power and discretion. Each perspective is appreciated for its heuristic value, depending upon the types of rules in question and the pragmatic circumstances faced in police decisions. At the same time, it is argued that policing is undergoing rapid transformation involving a new division of labor with regulatory agencies and private police, an attendant reconfiguration of the principles, standards and procedures of criminal law and the rise of surveillance-based control without the law. This `counter-law' environment of policing networks, legal exceptions and surveillance technologies is increasingly relied upon to ensure that the police are watched as well as watchers and the bearers of their own control.