This talk is designed to facilitate debate about the emerging and evolving relationship between the public and private policing sectors in Australia and elsewhere. The so-called 'pluralisation' of policing is gathering momentum in a number of jurisdictions, mainly North American, Australasia and to a lesser extent the UK and Europe. New theoretical models are now required that take into account the blurring of what have been conventionally considered parallel systems, (with private security as very much the "lesser" or junior entity). The speaker and Dr Tim Prenzler of Griffith University have developed a set of descriptive models to account for, and explain, the main types of existing and emerging policing relationships. The speaker will present a tentative prescriptive model of cooperation, one that supports the view that cooperation should be encouraged but that caution should temper any push towards a totally symbiotic cooperation between public and private. The best relationship for the future, he concludes, may be one that maintains a basic separation of powers, with operational cooperation only where it is deemed essential and not counter-productive, and where formal oversight can be provided by executive-level standing committees.
 

Date: November 30, 2000 (Thursday)
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Venue: 15/F, Senior Common Room, K.K. Leung Bldg., The University of Hong Kong

Professor Sarre is Associate Professor at the Department of Law, University of South Australia, has published  widely on criminal justice topics including policy, drug reform and more recently private policing.

BACK TO DISSEMINATION PAGE