Introduction

This book promotes new theoretical frameworks and research questions that seek to advance knowledge of policing across internal and external organisational boundaries, specifically at the structural level of analysis. It addresses police theory, policy and practice, and also provides new directions for future research on intra- and inter-organisational policing.

Importance of Boundaries

Analysing boundaries is of increasing global importance for policing policy and practice. Boundaries reflect the division-of-labour inherent to complex organisations and their specialist units. In order to operate effectively, however, these boundaries must be crossed, and strong and reliable linkages must be built. Intra-organisationally, it is vital to understand how specialist units form and function and interact with other units. Inter-organisationally, it is fundamental to recognise the place of boundaries in contexts such as international police cooperation.

Open Access

Chapters 3 and 4 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.