The Policing Complex Sample
This article is a summary of policing in Australia. In their article ‘The Policing complex’ Tim and Rick looks at this issue in depth. In Australia, policing is complex, contradictory, and controversial. To police means to control, however when a noun, it refers to a group of servants employed to enforce criminal and related laws. The police are responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and preventing offences defined by criminal law such as rape, embezzlement and vandalism etc. police are also tasked with a responsibility of controlling a vast array of regulatory offences such as violation of traffic laws and breaching of licensing regulations.
Discussion
Policing services can be organized in different ways. Australia has federal system; with a small federal force, the Australian federal police, which enforces federal criminal laws such as fraud against the commonwealth and drug smuggling, and provides conventional police services in the Australian Capital Territory on a contract basis. The AFP was established in 1979 as the latest permutation of an evolving commonwealth police service that dated back to 1917. The current state based police systems grew out of the desire of Australian colonial administrators to retain as much authority as possible when federation occurred in 1901. The work of conventional police attracts constant attention from media, and much police and policing scholarship has also been focused on this group. Such interest is understandable, given that police assume responsibility for the more dramatic crimes, and given the frequency of police interactions with ordinary citizens through traffic law enforcement and energy responses.
Conclusion
However, the idea of police as sole, other primary agency responsible for law enforcement and crime prevention can no longer be taken for granted. There have always been groups other than police involved in law enforcement, and in the last three decades there has been enormous expansion and diversification of these ‘non police’ police. These other agencies fall into two main groups: public sector specialist agencies, and private and public sector security services.